


The Speed of Enlightenment

by Man Over Bot (Manniness)



Series: Necessary Sacrifice [5]
Category: Almost Human (TV)
Genre: All the domestic things, Android Rights, Bad guys score some hits, Because smut just happens OK?, Case Fic, Conspiracy, Dorian has to start over as an officer-in-training, Guess who is Acting Captain of Delta Division, John is still a detective, M/M, Maldonado goes on vacation, Return to Delta Division, This fic got kinda porny, Whump, the slowest of slow builds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 52,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21727645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manniness/pseuds/Man%20Over%20Bot
Summary: On the cusp of a world that acknowledges sentient androids as fellow citizens, there’s still so much that can go wrong.  And that’s not just John’s paranoia talking.  Somebody has it in for DRNs.And if John could just get his hands on some solid evidence, he’d make the bastards pay.  Hard.(Continuation of “The Light at the End of the Tunnel(s)”)
Relationships: Dorian/John Kennex
Series: Necessary Sacrifice [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1120896
Comments: 75
Kudos: 37





	1. Changes

“Happy anniversary.”

John scowled. His face felt stiff, the downward turn of each muscle requiring genuine effort. In the last couple of days, he’d gotten out of practice. Damn. The happiness of his DRN team was infectious and it was ruining him. “Sandra. What the hell?”

She grinned at him from the other side of the Wall. The comms monitor didn’t quite capture the sparkle in her eye, but John knew it was there. Twinkling at him. “In two weeks, it’ll be a year to the day since you and Dorian started working together. Just a friendly reminder.”

“Right. Thanks. As thriving as this metropolis is--” He flapped an arm toward the far wall. “I don’t think we’re gonna manage to swing reservations to anywhere nice or--”

“Don’t make plans yet, John. We’re implementing the next phase.”

That got his attention. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she echoed, and then got down to business. “Ten officers. Arriving with tomorrow’s supply convoy. You’ve got ten days to show them around.”

John reared back. “Ten days! There’s no way--”

“They’ve kept up with your reports and they’ve studied the territory. They just need a little time and a guiding hand to get them oriented.”

“Uh-huh,” John doubted. Visibly. Very visibly. “Then what?”

“Then we want you and Dorian back here. We’re ready for you.”

How nice of her to make it sound like John and Dorian were the main act in some kind of precinct pageant. But John wasn’t fooled. It wasn’t just the department that was ready to work with a cantankerous, headstrong amputee and his DRN partner. Sandra was talking about the city as a whole.

Damn. Just… just, damn.

Still, it didn’t soothe the restless whisper in the back of his mind. The one that poked at old suspicions: plenty of powerful people were against DRNs. Once upon a time, it’d merely been a matter of whether the androids would make competent police officers, but now the stakes were so much higher.

The masses might be willing to picket and march for DRNs to join their community, but people like Councilmen James Hart and Fred Billings weren’t going to suddenly see the light, change their tune, and welcome Nigel Vaughn’s creations with open arms. They might concede this battle, but they had their beady eyes trained on the end game.

Schemes and red tape bullshit. John could practically smell it and had no idea what to do about it.

Not a pleasant feeling. But he said, “Good. That’s great news, because we’re ready to come back.”

“You’ve been missed. Both of you,” she said, her gaze flicking off to the side where Dorian was standing safely beyond camera range. Right where John had shooed him when the captain had warned John that she’d like a word in private. Yeah, John had never fooled her. Not for a moment.

“I wonder who they’re sending,” Dorian mused the instant John jabbed the disconnect switch.

“Why. You got a dream team picked out?”

Dorian angled his chin toward John and stared. John stomped on the urge to grin, he was feeling off-balance and more than ready to wise-crack himself back onto familiar territory. A little back-and-forth. Yes, this was just what John needed in order to blow off some steam.

“My dream team. Hm. Are you afraid you wouldn’t be selected captain, White Cheetah?”

Ouch. Yeah, that remark had hit a little too close to home. John’s jaw clenched. He swiveled around to make sure all the switches had been reset -- of course they were -- and scraped together a grudging response: “Never should’ve told you about that nickname.”

Comms were ready for the next transmission, so John pushed himself upright. The rickety seat wobbled and Dorian reached out to steady it. “John.”

“Yup. Back to work. I’m on it.”

“No. Stop.”

Dorian slid into John’s path. The locked door was just an arm’s length away. Beyond Dorian’s shoulder. Damn it. “What.”

“You really hate handing over control, don’t you?”

With teeth gritted, John sucked in a breath. Hissed. “It’s not something I make a habit of.”

“Ah, I noticed.”

Had he? Because-- “I seem to recall,” John burred, leaning in and lowering his voice to a baritone murmur, “once upon a time, when I let you have your way with me.”

Dorian cocked his head and whispered back a challenge: “And you want me to do it again.”

“I--what. Pfft, whatever.” He shifted to brush past the DRN, but suddenly there was a strong, warm hand wrapped around his arm and the room was spinning. John grunted as his back thudded against the wall. “Dorian!”

And then lips covered his in a passionate kiss. Fingers tugged gently at John’s too-long hair and hips aligned. Oh, damn. Ah, shit. John scrabbled for a grip on Dorian’s waist and hauled himself closer, arching into the immovable pillar that his lover presented.

“Say it, John,” Dorian murmured, words buzzing against two days’ worth of stubble. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Yes, damn it all,” John bit out. “I want it. Again.”

“With me.”

“Only with you.”

Dorian smiled and rubbed his nose along John’s in a silky and slow Eskimo kiss. “I’m all yours.”

But Dorian wasn’t. Dorian wasn’t anybody’s anymore. He belonged to himself, which was as it should be, but it didn’t really do much to settle John’s galloping pulse. There was so much to say. To ask. To consider. And none of it could happen here.

John leaned back and thumbed the edges of Dorian’s smile. Sighed. Rallied. “T-minus ten days and counting.”

“That’s the spirit.”

Yeah. Sure. Because that was John’s specialty. The right mood for every occasion. At the moment, what he needed was focus. Laser-locked focus. If he was handing off this rat maze to the next wave of under-appreciated chumps, then he had less than twenty-four hours to button down the hatches.

John checked his watch. More like twelve hours. Fuck.

D took the hint and cranked open the blast door. “I’ll get everyone up.”

Everyone. The DRNs who were all still waiting to hear when they’d be rotated out of this hole and allowed those basic rights that the state court had promised. “Yeah. Have them access patrol logs. ID loose ends.” Anything that might whip back around to bite them on the ass.

John had zero interest in dropping a flailing, flaming mess in the lap of his successor… unless it was Paul. Which might explain why Maldonado hadn’t given him any names.

Damn it.

It was a busy night. With the exception of four DRNs who’d been assigned to on-going patrols and six guys in serious need of charging, everyone was busy scanning reports and linking follow-ups and various other sightings and scans to relevant groups and events. Beefing up the community picture in this subterranean city.

There was no way over a dozen DRNs would fit in the comms room, so Dorian and Ringo took point there, prioritizing and relaying data to the others who John had gestured into a cluster of vacant seats in the cantina. John tried to keep up on his tablet, but mostly just nodded and grunted when something came up -- like, an update that had gone ignored because it hadn’t been logged with the appropriate tags. Little things that could become big things for the new schmucks who were inheriting this mess.

It was past midnight when John rubbed at itchy eyes and peered through bleary exhaustion at his watch. “OK, team. Dial it back if you need to conserve your charge. Save a little fun for the next rotation. We’ll pick this up again at 0630 hours.”

Translation: John was ten seconds away from face-planting on the table. Nobody tried to waylay him as he fought his way free of the bench and staggered toward the siren’s song of memory foam.

As his wrung out body hit the mattress, John sighed with joy. This, right here, was proof of how much Dorian loved him and what a beautiful thing that was.

It might have been six minutes or six hours later when the bed dipped and Dorian snuggled up beside him. John shifted, making room for the DRN to settle in close.

“S’time to get up?” John garbled.

“No. Go back to sleep.”

“Hm’K.”

The next time he rolled toward awareness, John clocked the feel of fingertips ghosting through his hair. It felt nice -- damn nice, actually. Soothing. Which was why he summoned the resolve to shake it off. Squeezing an eye open, he glared at Dorian who was already beaming. John didn’t have to glance at his watch to know what ass-crack of dawn felt like. And he didn’t need the teasing sing-song to know he hadn’t fooled Dorian: “You’re like a big cat.”

“Rawr,” John coughed out on sleep-stiffened vocal chords.

Dorian chuckled and John decided he didn’t mind.

A sigh. Not John’s. So he asked, “Hey? What’s going on?”

“Is it weird if I say I’m going to miss this?”

John didn’t answer right away. Couldn’t. He leaned closer and, a long moment later, rasped, “No. It’s not weird.” Because this -- what they stubbornly held on to in shadows and silence -- had taken root here in these joyless tunnels, and John was pretty sure that life -- and love -- as he and D had known it was about to change. In a big way.


	2. Parades

“Alantha Morris, reporting for duty, sir.”

“Officer Morris.” She was last, but not least, of the ten newcomers. John held out his hand. “Good to have you here,” he said, and hell yes he meant it. He remembered Morris from her work on the XRN case. She’d been the responding officer at Vaughn’s shabby workshop. She’d also been the one to chase down the service bot the night before that. John had read the report. No-nonsense and by the book. It was a good start, but wasn’t gonna cut it here in the long run. Still, she was a solid choice.

Dorian stepped forward and offered his hand as well. “Officer Morris. Good to see you again.”

“You, too, Dorian.” Her stoic expression softened enough to offer up a small smile. “Congratulations. On the court ruling. We were all pulling for you.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate that.”

“OK,” John interjected before things could get quiet and awkward. “Space is limited, so you’ll all be bunking together.” He gave a what-can-you-do shrug at the group, most of whom had been recruited (or culled, more like) from different precincts across the city. “We’ve got ten days to settle you in, so we’ll get started as soon as you dump your gear and get something to eat. Bunks through there and cantina here,” he instructed, pointing. “Huddle up back here at 1330 hours.”

With that, the gathering dispersed, Morris and the rest of the team weaving through the paths of MXs and soldiers. The MXs were systematically restocking supplies: pulling older, unopened crates forward and stacking new ones in back. The reservists were passing gun oil from hand to hand and waiting for their turn at the ammo cache. John noticed a fair number of emptied magazines.

He asked the officer-in-charge, “Where’d you hit hostile activity?”

And upon hearing that two subway entrances (that should have been clear) had apparently been claimed by gangs sometime over the past three days? Well. News like that made John downright crabby.

“We need to go back for a second sweep,” the commander concluded and John agreed.

“Yeah. Let me see who’s up in rotation and I’ll send them over for briefing.”

“Sounds good.”

She turned away to deal with a report or an update or a fucking happy-birthday greeting. John spun around on his heel and resisted the urge to bang his head against the nearest wall. God, but this shit never ended. One would think that after three solid months of crackdowns on gang activity, these bozos would get the fucking message.

Which probably meant that the bozos that were on the front lines weren’t the ones that needed to be taken out of the picture. At one-thirty p.m., he brought it up:

“We’re heading out on a standard patrol today. Going to be stopping in several communities so you can get a sense of their level of cooperation, but--” John stressed, “keep an eye open. The gang activity you encountered en route has been relatively constant, which wouldn’t be the case if these people were learning from their mistakes.”

Morris nodded. “Someone’s putting them up to it.”

“Yeah. It’s a possibility you’ll need to consider.”

“Any suspicions on their motives?” an officer named Nerling asked.

“Could be any number of things from idealism to coercion.” Not including ambition and sadism. Hopefully, having ten pairs of new eyes on it would see something John had missed. “Questions? OK, lock and load. Full tactical gear -- mask and visor. All good?”

John got ten thumbs-up from the officers. He prompted Dorian: “Comms check.”

Dorian, Jackie, and MacKenzie took care of that, radioing in to each officer and everyone checked that they were receiving all right. John waved to the patrol unit of troops and MXs standing by, and then they were moving out.

Moving, moving, moving. Ten solid days of on-the-go. Introductions and orientation and the occasional scuffle with people who really should know better than to open fire on John’s team. It just made him more and more suspicious that they were being distracted intentionally. A concern Morris shared when she asked for a word in private and, for her initiative, she earned herself John’s endorsement; if Captain Maldonado wanted John to name his successor, it’d be Morris.

Marjorie was particularly thrilled to meet the newcomers. John had saved her delightful corner of paradise for the final day. “More fuzz. Yeah, always thought your kind multiplied in dank, dark places. Under rocks.”

“Hey. What genius made her home underground?” John snarked back because this was how they flexed muscle and that was what people down here respected. 

She waved a scarred arm over the homesteading community at her back. “Do you see a damn welcome mat anywhere?”

“Every time you smile, Marjorie. They pop up outta the ground like daisies.”

She scowled harder.

“She’s going to miss me,” John confided to Dorian as they continued on their trek.

Dorian snorted. “Just keep telling yourself that, man.”

He would, too. He totally would.

And with that grand finale, the new team’s ten days of orientation were up. In retrospect, it felt like it’d gone by in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, John was facing the drudgery of packing up, moving out, making room for Morris (just promoted to lead officer) to lay claim to the apartment that Dorian had designed and built just for John.

And that thought right there was enough to rip John in half. Right down the middle. He shoved the last stack of clothing into his duffel bag with enough force to scrape his knuckles on the edge of his manicure kit. Damn it. Skin stinging, he sat back on his haunches and breathed. Breathed. Breathed.

_****Get your shit together, Kennex.** ** _

Yes. Because Dorian still needed him. Sure, Sandra was calling them back, but it wasn’t as if the city was going to throw a parade in their honor.

* * *

The city threw them a parade. Or the next most obnoxious thing.

“The media has taken an interest,” Val had warned as she’d led them from the Precinct 12 underground entrance over to the welcome wagon parked in the basement garage, her MX marching toward the driver’s door like it was worried John might claim the privilege first. “And you,” she’d said to Dorian with a gamine grin, “might be asked to say a few words.”

“Huh,” John had muttered because, really, what else could he say? So he’d slapped Dorian’s shoulder, tossed his bags and tactical gear into the trunk, and folded himself into the backseat. Resolved to enjoy the ride.

Ah, back in the city. And just plain back in sunlight. It was a perfect spring day and John actually felt a tingle along with the crisp blue of sky and fluffy white clouds. Hell, it was almost as if the universe -- and not just Val -- was personally welcoming them back.

Any warm and fuzzy feelings John might have been enjoying were resolutely quashed when the cruiser turned onto the Delta Division drive.

A riot of color and voices. John’s horrified gaze skipped over hundreds of people gathered at the front of the building. His hands twitched, itching for the destiny-defining weight of the assault rifle that was now dismantled and sitting underneath his charger in the trunk. All he had was his shoulder holster and street clothes and he’d never felt more vulnerable.

“These people,” Dorian breathed in awe, “they’re not here for us, are they?”

“Actually,” Valerie corrected, “they’re here for you, Dorian.”

Dorian blinked, clearly at a loss.

With a conscious effort, John scraped together some resolve. And a little humor because if this was Dorian’s moment, then he should remember that John was happy for him. He went one further and bumped Dorian’s elbow. “Here’s your chance to run for president.”

Val tossed back her head on a silent laugh. Dorian just gawped. “This is incredible.”

 _ ** **You’re incredible, and it’s about damned time somebody noticed,****_ John couldn’t say.

Or, actually, John could say that now, couldn’t he? Today, at least, because who the hell knew what kind of shit tomorrow would throw at them. But the cruiser was pulling up, people moving back to make room, waving and cheering with celo-banners flying and holo-posters shimmering.

“So many people.”

John looked over. Dorian was in shock. “Hey. Hey,” John insisted quietly, leaning in and putting a hand on the DRN’s shoulder. “You’ve got this.”

“But what do I say?”

A smirk tugged at John’s mouth. “You--seriously. You want advice from me. On what -- how to put your foot in your mouth?”

“Well,” Dorian replied in a familiar tone that heralded oncoming sass, “I was planning to solicit your suggestions… and then do the exact opposite.”

This time, Valerie hid a snicker behind her hand.

John gave the DRN’s arm a squeeze before pulling back to his side of the car. “Eh, you’ll be great.” And there. John hadn’t even used his over-the-top, fake, public-smile for that, either. 

“Right.” Dorian nodded with increasing confidence. “You’re right.” And then he shoved his way out of the idling car.

John scrambled toward the door on his own side before rolling his eyes and scooting over to Dorian’s, which was already a clear exit. “You abandoning us, Val?” he asked.

“Passing the baton. Paul’s waiting.”

“Oh. Goodie.”

It didn’t even occur to John until he was angling and dodging his way through the teeming crowd, that he could have stuck with Val and made a discreet entrance via the parking garage. But. Even if nobody here intended to cause Dorian harm, John just couldn’t let his partner out of sight. Not in barely controlled chaos like this.

But someone did seem to be in charge. Near the main entrance, a familiar figure was holding out her hand for Dorian to shake: Samantha Rubin, attorney and android rights activist galore.

He sighed. The woman could turn a three-minute chat into an eight-hour marathon of discourse. Fantastic.

John girded his loins as Samantha tugged Dorian over to a mic’ed up podium (although John knew from experience that he most definitely did not need one let alone half a dozen -- hell, just the memory of Dorian bellowing a command to pull over while yet inside the confines of the cruiser had John’s eardrums ringing) and when the DRN glanced back over his shoulder at John, John gestured for him to go on. This was Dorian’s show -- the DRNs’ show. These people hadn’t turned out to hear anything John had to say.

So he planted his feet a few paces back from the podium and to the side, next to Richard Paul. They exchanged polite nods and brusque greetings:

“Kennex.”

“Paul.”

And kept their attention on the man of the hour. 

“Dorian,” Samantha began, her voice ringing out over the multitudes crammed onto the pavement. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you.” John watched the back of Dorian’s head as he bowed forward, bashful and humble. “It’s very good to be back.”

“Is it just you today? Are you the only DRN returning to the city?”

“Yes. I know many of you are here because of Forney’s story and he’s doing well. But the work we’re doing on the other side of the Wall is very important and we all feel strongly about seeing it through.”

“I’m sure, I’m sure,” Samantha placated. She was smart enough not to ask for details on an ongoing operation: “Congratulations on your victory. The state court ruling.”

“Thank you. It wouldn’t have been possible without the people of the city pulling for us, so honestly and truly: thank you.”

“It was our pleasure, Dorian. Now, can you tell us -- when did you hear the news?”

John imagined Dorian smiling at the memory. “The same day the decision was announced.”

“And what was your reaction?”

Dorian tucked his chin down to his chest. His shoulders rose as he took a deep breath that he probably didn’t need. Not even to project his voice. “I thought: this is the start of a new age. A whole new era. It’s overwhelming. That I might be a part of this.”

“Dorian,” Samantha gently chided, “you _****are****_ a part of this. Absolutely.”

The crowd cheered. Whistled and whooped.

“What thoughts have you had about your future? Can you tell us?”

Dorian chuckled, an odd combination of rueful and inundated with emotion that echoed the odd thrumming in John’s own chest. “Oh, thoughts on top of thoughts, but I’d rather not share -- I don’t want to jinx it.”

An amused hum from the crowd amid the flash of smiles. Maybe Dorian had winked?

“Well, then, what’s next? What’s your plan for the next few days?”

“I’d like to see about a job.”

“A job. Here you are at Delta Division headquarters. Will you be submitting your resignation?”

“I hope not.”

“So you’d like to continue working with the police?”

“I’d like to continue helping people.”

“And there are thousands in this city would would be happy to continue helping you. We’re only a 494 away.” The crowd agreed with this. Boisterously. John tried not to wince as the clamor reached painful intensity. Samantha called for calm with a raised hand and a smile. She invited Dorian: “Is there anything you’d like to say?”

Say. To the supporters of the android rights movement. To the media camera drones hovering overhead. To the city. To the country. To the world.

Dorian would never have a better opportunity to be heard than this.

“Yes. I’d like to thank all the people who believe in the DRNs. Thank you for trying to understand us and thank you for helping to enable us to realize our potential. I know I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

Paul grunted and mumbled, “I guess Val was the one to coach him on what to say.”

John shook his head and kept the scowl off of his face by sheer force of will. No way would he let the cameras record this event with anything less than a proud smile on his face. “Jackass,” John retorted just as lowly. “This is all Dorian.” Just as it had always been all Dorian.

“Don’t know how you can work with a bot like that.”

John grinned harder. “Check the filter between your ass and mouth, Paul. I think it’s leaking again.”

At the podium, Dorian turned to Samantha and said, “Thank you for helping Forney fight for all of us. I know I speak for all DRNs when I say that we’re in your debt.”

“No, Dorian,” Samantha argued, focusing on him alone as the crowd became audience and faded to bystanders. “You’re not in anyone’s debt. You’re in our community.”

John smothered a laugh as Dorian threw his arms around her to a backdrop of cheers. Dorian’s face angled toward John in a way that made John think that this hug was pulling double-duty: part expression of thanks and part urge to reach out to John. The intensity of emotion on Dorian’s face -- John had seen this before during a moment in a subway atrium as a little boy had clung tightly to his DRN friend. This time, the overwhelmed heart wasn’t poured out to the cameras. It was for John.

John beamed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Officer Morris (I named her Alantha) is from Unbound. Officer Nerling is an original character named after the actor who plays Sergeant Truelove (who we’ll meet in a later chapter).


	3. Options

Dorian’s employment status was confirmed the moment they left the atrium. The restricted access alarm pulsed as Dorian attempted to cross the threshold into the Delta Division bullpen.

“You gotta be kidding me,” John growled as MXs sharpened their focus on the DRN.

Dorian wasted no time in lunging back a full step. Back into the public zone. “It’s not unexpected, John.”

“It’s stupid is what it is.” Revoking Dorian’s clearance just because he wasn’t police property anymore. Just asinine was what this was. But they had things to do and John wasn’t going to waste time griping about it. “C’mon. We’ll get you a visitor’s pass for now.”

John crossed his arms and gnashed his teeth as Dorian submitted to facial and retinal scans. Finger prints. Voice recognition. The whole nine yards before the receptionist finally slid a pass card over.

“The next time we do this, you’ll be getting your official department clearance,” John promised and Dorian grinned.

They headed for the captain’s office, waving to coworkers who paused in their investigations and official duties long enough to call out a greeting or wave or both. John didn’t slow his pace. Much. Maybe a little when a few of those welcome-backs were aimed at Dorian.

Maldonado was in her office, squinting with eagle eyes at the monitors beside her desk, fingers flying over the keyboard. John knocked on the open door and then gestured for Dorian to go in first when she looked up and nodded for them to come in.

“Captain,” Dorian greeted and John tucked back a grin as she rounded her desk to shake Dorian’s hand.

“Dorian. I’m so glad to see you here again.” Her gaze flicked to his visitor’s pass before lifting back to his face. “In any capacity.”

“A capacity I hope to make official.”

Her smile was lopsided and John was pretty sure there was a bark of laughter tucked in there somewhere. “I heard.”

Dorian bit his lip as he glanced at the monitors, and John rapped his knuckles on the still-open door.

“Leave it open, Detective,” the captain said and indicated for them to have a seat off to the side. The little table where John and Sandra had kicked back with a dram of whiskey each after the arrest of Simon Lynch -- John was happy to see this little lounge corner again.

Sandra sat. John sat. Dorian hesitated for a moment before he also sat and, oh boy, John was going to razz him about this later. Somehow. It was totally going in the bank.

“Dorian,” she began, “I’d like to ask you some questions about your immediate plans -- and I’m sure you have some concerns. I don’t think John needs to be here for this.”

Wow. Yeah, John was impressed. He’d always suspected that Sandra had viewed Dorian as a person, now here she was finally being allowed to act like it. There weren’t many situations where a human would be asked to leave the room before an android. So, instead of bitching about how he’d just sat down damn it, John bopped Dorian on the arm and said, “I’m gonna go check my messages.” Opening up his email might just make the terminal explode, but what the hell. Why not.

“OK, John,” Dorian said in a tone that sounded automatic. But when John braced himself on the arms of the chair, scooting forward in preparation of levering himself upright, Dorian changed his mind: “No. I mean, you can stay if you want to, man.” Another pause as Dorian cautiously declared, “I think you should stay.”

 _ ** **I think.****_ Dorian had said that -- voiced his own _****preference****_ \-- out loud and in front of a police administrator. Damn but this was a brave new world, wasn’t it?

“OK,” John replied, slouching back into the embrace of comfortable cushions.

“You’re beaming, John,” Sandra teased him and he shrugged. So what. If the gleam of the lights off of his teeth was too much, she could dial back on the amps. That was why God had invented dimmer switches.

“Captain,” Dorian said, perching on the edge of his seat, “hypothetically speaking, if I wanted to continue on here…”

“You’ll have to go through the same process that human recruits face.”

John put out a hand. “Hold up. So, are we talking the academy?”

“No, that would be a waste of everyone’s time. And a waste of Dorian’s abilities.” She turned from John and explained to Dorian, “You’ll have to pass the exams -- physical, procedural, and psychological. You’ll need a home address and a driver’s license. Register with city hall as a resident and get yourself a social security number.”

Right. Because all hell would break loose of DRNs didn’t pay income tax. Jeez.

“OK. Anything else?” Dorian probed.

“Next would be probational employment -- on the job training with a senior officer.”

Now this was just too much. “You’d put Dorian on _****patrol duty.”****_

“This isn’t my call, John. We play by the book or we open the door to criticism.”

“How long would I be a beat cop?” Dorian asked, his tone perfectly pleasant. As if he didn’t have an ounce of righteous indignation in him.

“No, just -- wait.” John tried again: “Doesn’t Dorian’s previous experience translate at all?”

Sandra shrugged a shoulder. Shook her head in that way John knew: the one that advised against whatever rash act John was contemplating. “You can fight for it, but it’ll only isolate him from the rest of the force.”

Damn it.

“Everybody starts at the same place, John. That’s not an accident.”

No, it wasn’t. It was a time-honored tradition and a time-tested method of building trust between men and women -- and now DRNs -- who would have to rely on one another for the sake of their lives. “Yeah, I know.” He just really didn’t like it. “How long?”

Now that Dorian’s question was finally back on the table, Sandra turned her attention back to him. “Standard probation lasts six months, extending for an additional six to twelve months in an officer’s assigned division.”

Right. Because not all academy graduates were posted where they would serve. It was a way to ease pressure on the Human Resources department as well as ensure that department practices didn’t diverge too much from one station to another.

“Would I be able to work with Detective Kennex again?”

John very deliberately stared at the tabletop.

“You could put in a request but, frankly, I think that’s unlikely. You’d be viewed in the same light as a human officer, Dorian. Assigned an MX partner. We’re not going to waste your training by asking you to be a bullet-catcher.”

At that, John did look up. Winced at Sandra’s pointed look. “Dorian hasn’t taken heavy fire since--”

“Since last summer. August. During the palladium heist,” Sandra summarized. “But he took plenty of damage when we closed the case on the Bishop. And more than his fair share against the XRN.”

“Captain,” Dorian argued and damn it all if he wasn’t going to argue. Now of all times. “I did my job in each of those instances.”

“Yes. But as a police officer, the demands of the job will change. This work is dangerous. It will be your responsibility to minimize those risks, not counter them. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am. But my programming--”

“That’s why we have probationary periods. For programming.” As Dorian still visibly hesitated, Sandra added, “If that’s not sufficient, maybe it’s something Rudy can help you with. Wait until you’ve been officially employed. The department will cover the cost. In lieu of a traditional health care benefits package.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Anything else you need?” Dorian shook his head and Sandra asked, “John?”

“Nothing to add to my most recent report.” Which had described an uneventful trek to the Wall and had been registered at the Chocolate Factory. No doubt Captain Maldonado had received a copy the instant John had thumbed the submit button.

“Good. Get out of here. John, take three days. Get your place habitable. Power and water should be on. I’ll see you at roll call. Wednesday morning.”

And what else could John say except: “OK.” He shoved himself to his feet. “D? You need a ride?”

Dorian’s chin twitched before he answered, “Yeah. Thanks, man.” Turning to the captain, he said, “Thank you for your time today. And the opportunity.”

“We’re all happy to do our part, Dorian. We want you to succeed.”

Succeed. Yeah. That was the endgame.

“To Rudy’s first?” John asked as he settled behind the wheel of the cruiser. Dorian didn’t pester him about driving. Because Dorian didn’t have a license. He was a private citizen now. A civilian.

“John!” Dorian objected, puzzled and insulted. He looked petulant. “Why are you behaving like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like we barely know each other.”

“What--when did I act like--”

“Just now! You’re taking me back to Rudy’s?”

John huffed, relieved that the misunderstanding could be so simple: “Not unless that’s where you want to be. I’d like to ask him to come by and look over your charger. Y’know, before you use it.”

“Oh. Right.” Dorian didn’t point out that there was no reason for it to not be in the same condition that they’d left it in. If Shaw could get a DRN virus through the Wall and if Vaughn could tweak DRN code to the point of creating an android capable of vengeful murder, then who the hell knew what kind of fun surprises might be waiting for them back home. A far more accessible target than anywhere on the other side of the Wall. “Sorry, man.”

“It’s OK,” John heard himself say as he keyed the ignition and pulled the cruiser out of its parking space. Valerie had already transferred their belongings to the trunk. What a trooper. John owed her another bottle of bourbon.

“No,” Dorian suddenly confided and John glanced over to see him staring out the window. Disengaged. Fuck. “It’s not OK, but it’s not unexpected.”

When Dorian faced forward, John felt his next breath come easier. Dorian added, “It seemed unlikely -- the odds of us remaining partners following the state court ruling. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it.”

Yeah, well. John had warned him. Way back before Rudy and Val had shown up. Not that being owned and legally labeled police property hadn’t been bad and just plain wrong for Dorian -- for any DRN -- but it’d had its perks.

_****We can’t have our cake and eat it, too.** ** _

“What are we going to do, John?” Dorian was asking him, looking to John for answers that he didn’t have because this was policy and even back when John had loathed the thought of putting up with an android partner, he hadn’t been able to fight it. And now here he was, loathe to give one up. Oh, irony, you son of a bitch.

John cleared his throat. “Well. I guess I’m gonna have to get used to working with an MX.”

Dorian faced forward and, to the windshield, quietly agreed, “I guess I will, too.”

The rest of the drive passed in aching silence.


	4. Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: sexytimes (^_^)

Rudy was happy to see them, so that helped. It helped a lot. An enthusiastic hug and a Freudian slip pushed reality back into the time-out corner, and John was ridiculously grateful.

The roboticist produced John’s duffel bag -- the one containing both his and Dorian’s most prized possessions and mementos.

“Nobody ever asked about it -- or anything you might have left with me,” Rudy reported as he dug deep in a storage room, stretching up high and nudging Dorian’s sandcastle molds free from the top of a crate. He managed to balance them on his fingertips, shuffling back and catching them in his skinny arms before they crashed to the floor. Getting the job done, Rudy-style.

“Here we are. I do believe this is the last of it.” He passed the molds to Dorian. John reached for the duffel straps.

“Thanks again, Rudy.”

“Yeah, thanks, man,” Dorian concurred.

“And, can we ask for another personal favor?” John dared. For Dorian’s sake, of course he would. He’d both dare and ask. “Give the charger a once-over? The one at my place?”

“Hm? Oh, of course. Right. I’ll stop by later this evening?”

“Sounds good. Give either of us a call when you’re headed our way.”

“Will do. And, both of you -- bloody welcome back!”

John coughed out a laugh as the man foisted another round of enthusiastic hugs on them. And then they were back in the car, fighting through Saturday afternoon traffic. What fun.

Dorian insisted on going to the supermarket first. John argued that the power might not be on and both the refrigerator and freezer a balmy paradise for dust bunnies.

“How would dust even get in there, man? The point of the seal on the door is--”

“Yeah, yeah, I know what it’s supposed to do. Dust gets in there anyway.” Because dust got everywhere. Maybe because it traveled inter-dimensionally.

“I can use your phone to contact the power company’s customer service system and confirm that the power’s on.”

No. That might alert spies and trespassers to their imminent arrival. John tightened his grip around both the steering wheel and his own paranoia. “Fridge could be broken.”

Dorian shook his head, grinning at John like John was being adorable instead of realistic. “It’s a beautiful day, John. The sun is shining and we’re going home. You’re allowed to be happy, man.”

John side-eyed Dorian, squashing his lips together in a grumpy moue. But he turned on the winker and aimed the cruiser toward the supermarket. What the hell, right? If Dorian was right, John could have ice cream for dinner. If Dorian was wrong, John could say “I told you so.”

The power was on. The power was on, the fridge was cold, and there was hot water to be had. They stocked the kitchen, made the bed, emptied all the duffel bags and sorted laundry.

“I’m taking a shower,” Dorian declared and John’s jaw dropped.

“But--damn it--I--”

With a sly look, Dorian added, “You are welcome to join me.”

Oh. Well. “Fine, then.”

Hot water and warm hands. Soapy caresses that lingered on skin for pleasure rather than business. John chuckled into the crook of Dorian’s neck as the android teased the twin curves of John’s ass. “Fixated much?”

“The fact that you even know what I’m thinking about puts you in the same category.”

The same category. Damn, that was the problem, wasn’t it? Because both of them were cops at heart and neither one of them was an MX.

John sighed.

A beat of silence in hissing water. “Sorry.”

“Shut up and kiss me, D.”

Dorian pulled back, curled a hand around John’s neck and angled their lips into contact. Slow and testing and John surged forward because they knew each other better than this. Much better.

John heard a groan, felt it vibrate in his own throat as Dorian took command, sliding his tongue between John’s lips in a rhythm of to-and-fro that abruptly heated John’s blood past the point of the cascading water.

He fumbled for the off switch. Slammed it down and then found himself smacking into the smooth wall, Dorian pressing into him hard. A rock and a hard place and when John fidgeted, testing his freedom, he moaned at the feeling of restraint. This. He wanted this. He wanted to fight for it as he was pushed and pulled. He wanted to stop running from it because he couldn’t. He wanted hands on his hips holding him down and if he couldn’t escape, then he could give in and demand.

“D.” He gasped as Dorian’s open-mouthed kiss turned into the promise of a bruise beneath his ear. “Bed, D. Bed.”

They made it to the mattress. Barely air-dried and John was already sweating, so it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Dorian’s hands, spreading John’s thighs wide. Lube-slicked fingers and if John was whimpering, he didn’t hear it. Everything -- every sense -- was full, maxed out with Dorian. Just Dorian.

“Make me,” John rasped as Dorian shoved a pillow beneath his hips and leaned in, curving over him, and oh hell yeah. “Make me take it all.”

“No mercy,” Dorian promised and pushed and oh. Oh. Oh, God.

“Oh my--fuck--Dorian!” So much. Burning and--oh, God. What had John been thinking--fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Look at me, John.”

Look. Look at Dorian. Look at what Dorian was doing to him. Look at what John was allowing, wanting, taking. He opened his eyes and looked. From Dorian’s hot stare to the cock that was relentlessly disappearing into John’s body. A searing thrill spiked and spiraled through John’s veins and he rolled his spine. Knees wide. Thighs open.

“Make me,” he choked out and then one hand was hooking around the back of John’s knee. The other splayed over the opposite thigh, bracing him open… and then Dorian rocked into it -- smooth and slow -- and opened him more.

“FUCK!” A shout that John couldn’t deny belting out as heavy, pounding desire slammed into him from all sides. Zooming pulse and throbbing want and _****all of it.****_ “Fucking all of it, Dorian!”

A short thrust and John’s sight blanked to white as sparks shot up his spine. “Ah-hah!!” he approved and then words were unnecessary. The rhythm was necessary. And John was keen to the point of _****keening****_ for the main event to really kick off. But then. Unexpectedly, Dorian flipped the script and followed through with a gentle thrust and roll. One after another. Again and again.

Oh, God. This was killing him. The strain of John’s muscles against firm hands. The blunt force of Dorian’s invasion. The burning of his own skin. If John could have rolled, rocked, reached himself even wider, he would have. The want was everywhere. Everything. All he was. Just, _****want.****_

His fingers curled against Dorian’s shoulders, arms, neck. Tangled into the fitted sheet, and when that popped loose from its moorings, John dug his nails into the pillow, pressed his palms against the headboard.

And Dorian kept on. Kept on. Kept on. Until John’s hands were seeking other handholds: Dorian’s waist, clutching himself nearer as he wrapped a fist around himself. And this was it. What Dorian had been waiting for. As John pumped himself, Dorian pumped into John. Tenderness and steady thrusts dissolving into bodies slamming, rough and mindless.

“John,” Dorian breathed. “Unravel for me. Show me.”

He did. Oh boy, he did. A strangled cry and teeth-gritted plea for more-more ** _ **-** **more**_** as splashes slopped up his chest in hot waves. Skin sizzling and sight blanking and timeless heat and rushing tide and--

“John!”

The synthetic skin under his palm hummed with energy. John gasped at the weak punch of Dorian’s hips, deep and hot and flush against the cradle of his pelvis. He blinked the world back into focus just as Dorian came, gaping and unblinking and perfectly still as heat zoomed beneath his smooth skin. Heat only. No processing lights. Which, John reflected almost deliriously, was maybe a good thing. Dorian would have lit this place up like Christmas was coming.

Jesus.

John lifted his head and bit back a groan at the sight of their bodies still connected and then dropped his head back onto the cockeyed pillow. He exhaled, laughed a bit as joy bubbled out of his pores, and caressed whatever of Dorian he could reach with his elbows planted on the mattress. God, but John could not remember a time in his life when he’d ever been this fucked out.

“You OK?” he managed, working up the strength to raise his head again, but he didn’t have to. Dorian relaxed and slowly slid over him, curving and cradling. Cuddling. John nudged and wiggled in closer, sore and sated.

“It’s not fair,” Dorian murmured, pressing a kiss to John’s collarbone followed by another right beside it. “I can do what I want now, and I can’t work with you.”

John’s shaky arms obeyed his command to lift up, wrap around Dorian, and rub over skin that was still damp from the shower. “I know,” John agreed, breath hitching as Dorian shifted and the synthetic flesh still stretching him wide pressed up against his friction-numbed prostate.

“Sore?” Dorian teased as he carefully redistributed his weight.

John rolled his eyes, but didn’t push Dorian off of him. He held on tighter.

“You need to get your own place.”

The words drifted up like the scent of coffee percolating. Like an afterthought that could punch an ulcer into a man’s gut.

Dorian paused-stilled-froze solid, the fifth butterfly kiss interrupted. He looked up. “What?”

John made himself say it again: “You need to get your own place, D.”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

“No! No. I mean--” John swallowed. “You get a say in that. You want--?”

“I want to stay here. With you.”

“Doesn’t have to be that way.” And suddenly, the fear that had been riding John hard for the last two weeks came spilling out. “Everyone treats you like a person now. You could have someone--” Better. “Someone less morose and malcontent, someone--”

“Someone who treats me like a person because the law forces them to?”

It was clearly a rhetorical question. Wow, “pissed off” was a hot look on Dorian.

“Don’t be an idiot, John!” Dorian fairly shouted. “I don’t want to be with someone who treats me _****like****_ a person. I want someone who believes I _****am****_ one.” Voice lowering and fingers caressing John’s jawline, Dorian repeated: “I want to stay here. With you.”

There wasn’t much John could argue with about that and, honestly, he didn’t want to. He really didn’t want to argue.

“Yeah. OK. You can, but you need your own place.” And suddenly, the luscious cock inside him was too much. He was too raw and just… no. He pressed a palm against Dorian’s shoulder and hitched himself up in bed, grimacing as Dorian slid back, but John aimed his irritation at the fact that he was caught on the pillow beneath his hips. John yanked the offending obstacle out from under him and tossed it over the edge of the bed.

“I don’t understand,” Dorian complained, but eagerly stretched up to lie beside John when he rearranged himself so that an accommodating space opened up.

John wrapped an arm around Dorian’s shoulders and rolled him in close enough for John to press his lips to that beetled forehead. “You need to be independent. Everyone’s going to be watching you. You’re setting the standard that the other DRNs will be judged by. If you aren’t self-sufficient, no one’s going to believe that you _****could****_ be. That _****any****_ DRN could be.”

Dorian processed that slower than John knew he was capable of. Which meant Dorian was coming to a conclusion that he didn’t like. “This was what the captain meant when she said I’d need a home address.”

“Yeah.” It was a truth that had been hanging off of John’s shoulders for the last two weeks. Ever since the state court had weighed in. “You can’t afford to show any weakness right now, D. Strong front.” The future of all DRNs might just be riding on it.

“But I can still come over? Or you can stay with me? Sometimes?”

“Absolutely,” John vowed, hands moving in comforting circles. Because this was a big change and, in general, John was not a fan of change. But they didn’t really have a choice.

Another moment passed. “Come with me? When I choose an apartment.”

John pressed another kiss to Dorian’s skin, to his temple this time. “You got it.”


	5. Dinner Party

They had a checklist.

When Rudy stopped by to make sure Dorian’s charger was up to spec, that was one point crossed off.

It was a pretty damn important one, too. Chargers designed specifically for DRNs didn’t grow on trees. And MX chargers were a no-go for two reasons: first, they were only sold to government organizations and certified robotics technicians who were subcontracted by the government; second, the fact that MXs ran on a different frequency from DRNs meant that the charger would have to be completely overhauled. It was like taking a race car and turning it into a hot tub. And once that fun DIY project was completed, the things were unreliable pieces of crap: on the other side of the Wall, the refurbished MX chargers had constantly been breaking down. Dorian had griped more than once about their inefficiency.

John had made the mistake of suggesting they look at chargers that privately-owned bots used. But apparently those were android-specific and would only work for the single unit it had been designed for. Plus, they’d have the same problem of converting it to the frequency used by DRNs. What a mess. Capitalism hard at work all right.

So a working DRN charger was a priority and it made John very happy to see Rudy taking it seriously. Though, it turned out to be a bit of a production when Dorian insisted Rudy stay for dinner.

“Oh, I would love to. Honestly. Only, it’s my night to treat Valerie.”

When John caught the appreciative sniff that Rudy gave -- Dorian had just put a John-approved-and-rated-spectacular lasagna in the oven, John magnanimously invited, “Have her join us.”

A text message exchange later, Rudy cautiously ventured, “Erm, Val’s noticed that the captain could use some sustenance.”

“The more the merrier, man!” Dorian breezed past John and started pulling more food out of the refrigerator. Probably for soup, salad, and garlic bread.

“Yeah,” John snarked. “Let’s invite Paul, too, while we’re at it.”

“That is an excellent idea!” Dorian enthused.

Rudy snickered at John’s nonplussed expression. But went back to texting before John could wave him off and nix Paul’s invite. Besides, if Rudy conveniently “forgot” to extend the invitation to him, Dorian would find out about it. Somehow. Damn it.

So John capitulated: “If somebody brings the wine, we’ll be all set.” And then he stomped into the main room, pulling out the screens and caging up his bed and closet space. Rudy had given it a double-take upon entering, but John had played it off: “It’s just me living here. Who cares where I sleep.”

And when Rudy had raised his brows at Dorian, Dorian had reminded him, “I used to bunk with you at the lab… when I wasn’t charging with the MXs.”

“Oh?” Poor Rudy. His confusion was as painful as it was hilarious. But he’d clued in with a tiny jolt. “Oh! Yes. Absolutely. And if anyone asks, that’s what I’ll tell them.”

Val arrived first with a bottle of red from an organic market that she swore hadn’t been out of the way. But John suspected that she’d simply pulled this from her other desk drawer. The one next to the bourbon cache.

Paul showed up with a bottle of white from an all-night convenience store. It was still in its crinkled, brown shopping bag.

“Nice hobo touch, Mister Sophisticated. Really adds to the overall effect.”

“After the day I’ve had -- you just keep pushing, Kennex, and I’ll ‘effect’ you.”

Maldonado arrived just in time to shame them into putting it on the back burner. “Or else nobody gets dessert.” She _****had**** _gone out of her way for cannoli, and from the smell alone, John was pretty sure she wouldn’t shed a single tear if she did in fact have to devour the whole box on her lonesome. 

“This is just what your place needs, John,” Rudy volunteered as he poured himself a second glass of wine. “A home party to make it look lived-in.”

“Yeah. Too clean,” Paul complained, wrinkling his nose. “Probably because you got cleaned out while you were over there in the land-that-civilization-forgot.”

“Where are you staying, Dorian?” Sandra asked before John could talk trash about Paul’s living habits.

Dorian opened his mouth, but Rudy rather loquaciously beat him to the punch: “That’s the reason I came over, wasn’t it? John’s very kindly offered his spare room to store an old DRN charger of mine. Frees up enough space in the lab for the in-coming order of MX parts to have someplace to go. Cheers.”

John responded to his salute by raising his own barely touched glass. He’d be damned if he got drunk and sloppy on the first day of Dorian’s new city life. “No problem. I’ve got a room for the charger and a couch for the DRN.”

Valerie snorted. “I think there’s been some kind of mix-up, there. And besides--” She glanced over her shoulder toward the furniture in question. “--that couch is way too short for you, Dorian.”

Dorian smiled at her consideration. John just braced himself in dread of her shrewd detective skills. “I don’t actually need to lie down in order to power down. The couch is more than sufficient.”

Oh-ho! Was it now. John remembered a time when Dorian had judged his fantastic sofa. Judged it harsh. They were going to be circling back around to this point when there were no witnesses.

“But speaking of places,” Dorian said too casually, broaching the topic like he was trying to poke and peer through the folds and creases of wrapping paper, “I’m in the market for an apartment. Any recommendations?”

They spent the rest of the meal (including the cannoli) debating the merits of the various habitable neighborhoods in the city. This inevitably led to someone recalling a case in the vicinity, so John also got a hodgepodge of updates on recent crimes. Oh my but it was good to be back.

“You on a diet, Kennex?” Paul was scowling at John’s plate, which held a large bite of lasagna and a wedge of cannoli. Both of which he’d cut and set aside before tucking in. Something had occurred to John and he wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to try it.

“No, Paul, I’m saving it for my pet goldfish. Why? You looking for a doggie bag to take with you?”

Rudy, cheeks pink, blurted, “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

“His name is Clifford,” John insisted just as Valerie, biting back a grin, leaned over and gently explained to her tipsy significant other, “He doesn’t. John’s being a jackass.”

Sandra snorted, a hand pressed over her mouth and eyes squeezed shut.

And, John figured what the hell. He might as well own it. “Nobody makes it look as good I do.”

Dorian sighed, lowering his brow almost to the tabletop, and deplored, “I really, really need to find my own place.”

And then nobody could keep a straight face. Sandra shook her head on quiet laughter. Val dissolved into giggles as Rudy squeaked out a chuckle. Paul guffawed at John, who smacked Dorian on the shoulder. “Just for that, you get to play host and get these hooligans outta here. I’m loading the dishwasher.”

“Would you like a hand, John?” Sandra, the first to recover, asked.

He waved her off. “Nah. You’ve probably got an early start tomorrow.”

“Thanks for having us,” Val murmured, stacking her dishes.

“Next one’s my place?” Rudy offered, a bit drunkenly.

“Sounds good,” Paul agreed. Because, apparently, he wasn’t aware of the Guy Code rule that stated only fleabags took advantage of an inebriated friend’s generosity. Somehow, John wasn’t surprised.

“Let me give you a ride home, Rudy,” Val insisted.

“Oh, but my truck--”

“I brought Max,” she added, nodding toward where she’d parked her cruiser and, evidently, her department-assigned MX as well. “He’ll follow us back to the lab.”

With that sorted, Sandra took off. Val ushered Rudy outside. Paul lingered at the door and John tried not to eavesdrop but come on. It was a direct line of sight from the kitchen. Pretty much. And the acoustics… well. They’d been one of the selling points when John had first seen the place.

“Hey, Dorian, look,” Paul began in a subdued tone, “you know I respect your abilities. So I don’t mean to come across sounding like as much of a jackass as Kennex.”

John bit back a snort and pretended he wasn’t listening. Although, if he hadn’t been listening, he would have been loading the dishwasher with a lot more gusto.

“I just--I don’t see how this is going to work. For you.” And he sounded genuinely frustrated. Maybe not concerned, but definitely not patronizing, so John let it slide.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Dorian agreed, “but it will work because it has to. The other DRNs are counting on me.”

“Yeah. Don’t envy you there. But, hey. You’ve got my number, right? If you think of something I can help you with, gimme a call.”

“Thank you, Detective Paul.”

“Eh. Call me Richard when we’re off the clock, yeah?”

“OK. Richard. Have a good night. Drive safe.”

Well, how disturbingly civil. Naturally John complained as soon as Dorian shut the door, locked it, and wandered back into the kitchen. “You already dictate my coffee consumption. Don’t make me be nice to Paul, too.”

“I would never be that cruel.”

“Oh. Good to know there’s a limit-- _ ** **hey!”**** _ John bleated at the bite of a damp towel snapping him in the ass. “Get over here and apologize for that or we’re gonna have a problem.”

Dorian danced just out of range, abandoning the towel on the counter. “How about I kiss it better?”

“How about I kiss _****you****_ better?” So that was what John did, latching onto Dorian’s wrist and swinging himself into his lover’s arms. A long kiss before bedtime. John really wished this was the kind of thing he could get used to without worrying who was going to eventually find out about it. And use it against them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clifford is from the children’s stories about Clifford, the big (giant!) red dog… that was probably supposed to be imaginary. And John’s point here is that only an imaginary dog could put up with Paul. Heh.


	6. Apartment Hunting

The next action item was handled at city hall. Actually, they scratched off two chores in one morning. Dorian was assigned a social security number and then he directed John to a three-story brick monstrosity between John’s apartment and Delta Division, just off the beaten path. The building was fifty years old if it was a day, but it looked solid and Dorian had already called ahead to book an appointment to see a unit.

“When did this happen?” John had asked, resenting the fact that their destination would be void of coffee. After taking a number and glaring at the hard, plastic seats of the waiting area at city hall for almost an hour, John needed a fix and he needed it bad.

Dorian had teased: “I told you: you use way too much hair gel, man.”

Asshole.

But here they were. And just as John had feared: no coffee.

The landlady, who had probably been eligible for the senior citizen discount back when they’d first laid the building’s foundation, huffed and grumbled her way up the stairs to the second floor, keys jangling in counterpoint to the thump of her cane.

John felt her pain; his lower back and thighs and other unmentionables ached and burned as he ascended. Hell, when he stood up. When he walked. When he sat down. Sore, Dorian had asked. God damn hell yes, John was sore. And regretted nothing.

“Can’t provide maintenance,” the wizened Mrs. Fisk warned Dorian for the fourth time since their arrival.

“I don’t mind taking care of that myself, Mrs. Fisk,” Dorian repeated… for the fourth time, “as needed.”

Her bony hands trembled as she fought with the tangled key ring until she shoved it John’s way. “The red one. Number 202.”

John sorted it for her and fit it in the lock. She patted his arm in thanks and turned it. The old wooden door -- solid wood, John assessed with appreciation -- creaked open on stiff, brass hinges. The room on the other side had dusty hardwood floors, well-laid though worn in high traffic areas. The whole place was just two rooms, one in front of the other. Narrow and camped. The kitchen was more of an afterthought tucked beside the door. Through the far door was a tiny bedroom made even more microscopic by the slipshod addition of a toilet, sink, and shower closet. There was a picture window set into bare brick wall that faced the east. And this, at least, John could say was a decent view.

“Nobody appreciates a pretty sunrise anymore,” Mrs. Fisk lamented.

“I do,” Dorian shared and John put out a hand before he could seal the deal.

John checked, “This unit have its own meter?”

“Yeah. We don’t do that hippie communal nonsense here. You’ll deal with the power company if you have a problem. I wash my hands of all that.”

“Heat?”

“Boiler in the basement. Radiator works fine.”

It didn’t look fine. It looked one rumbling, passing truck away from vibrating into a pile of paint chips and rust. Dorian bent over to scan it, then stood with a shrug. Yeah, OK. It wasn’t as if it was a huge priority for a DRN, but if John was going to be spending any time here, he’d like to _****not****_ freeze his balls off.

Whatever would Dorian scan if that happened.

“Hot water?” John checked next, leaning into the camper-sized bathroom.

“Four 200-gallon tanks between twelve units.”

“How many renters live here?” Dorian asked. A question he wouldn’t have had to ask if he’d still had access to the police and DMV databases.

“I’m downstairs. There’s one other first floor tenant. Nobody directly below here. Third floor’s got graduate students from the college over yonder. All four of those rooms are full.”

So Dorian would pretty much have the second floor to himself. With a brick wall to block the noise of traffic two streets over. Not bad.

John shared a look with Dorian. “You need some time to think it over?”

“No.” He held out his hand to Mrs. Fisk. “I’d like to rent it. When can I move in?”

She blinked at his perfect hand and then squinted up at his face, fishing out a pair of thick glasses from her cardigan pocket. The beaded strap that the earpieces were connected to tinkled softly. “You’re not one of them -- whatcha call’em -- DN robots?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m a DRN.”

“Your kind make a lotta noise?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Run experiments or whatnot?”

“No.”

“Ain’t got but two electrical outlets. Don’t you overload ’em, hear?”

“I’ll be very contentious.”

“Huh.” She put her glasses away. “You boyfriend here gonna be staying over?”

John’s eyes bugged. Dorian just smiled. “Would that be an issue?”

“Just keep it down. Not a fan of the midnight jackhammer. Don’t want a front row seat to one of them Animal Planet documentaries, neither.”

John decided this was a good time to look for cracks and water stains near the ceiling.

“John has his own place,” Dorian thoughtfully explained. “He won’t be here all that often.”

Oh, he wouldn’t, would he? Now that just made John want to bluster for the hell of it.

“Well, all right,” Mrs. Fisk decided. “I’ll give you a try Mr. DN--”

“Dorian,” he gently corrected.

“--you can move in as soon as I get your first and last month’s rent--”

Dorian produced the bitcoin stick that John had given him last December.

Mrs. Fisk blinked and then fished her own bit stick out of her pocket. With a touch of devices, the transaction was done.

“Hours for moving in are eight a.m. to eight p.m. except on Sundays. That’s noon to eight p.m.”

“I understand.”

“Welcome to the building. I’ll walk you down. Get your key.”

Fifteen minutes later, Dorian slid into the passenger seat of the cruiser, beaming with accomplishment.

“Congratulations,” John told him. “You now have an apartment.”

“I do.”

“And a second key to put on your key chain.”

“I do!”

“And a landlady who watches too many kinky animal documentaries.”

Dorian winced. “That’s a distinct possibility.”

Laughing, John started the car. “I need some lunch, then let’s head back to city hall.”

“For my resident’s status?”

“Yup. Now that you’ve got an address to reside at, it’s time for the city to make good on that citizenship deal.” John paused before turning onto the street. With a glance at Dorian, he needled, “Unless you’ve got some other business to take care of at city hall?”

Dorian looked down at the key he was turning over and over in his hands. “No, let’s deal with the rights the court agreed on first.”

John’s hands slid down off of the wheel and into his lap. “First? What other rights are on your wish list?”

“Just…” Dorian glanced over at John’s hands before he looked into John’s eyes. He seemed to gather his courage before saying on a long breath, “Just the one that would have you wearing my ring on your finger.”

John’s right thigh flexed, pressing the brake pedal flat into the foot well. Aches flared. He huffed. Nervous and uncertain and blindsided. If he didn’t laugh, he’d panic. “What. Seriously?”

“Yes, John. I’m very serious.”

Damn. He was. John looked away. Swallowed. Oh, God. Dorian had just proposed to him. In the fucking cruiser. With John at the wheel. 

“John. This is the part where you say something.”

He sucked in a breath and dared to glance over, but the earnest and honestly apprehensive frown on Dorian’s face captured his full attention. Held it. And John was honest enough to admit that he had been caught because Dorian captivated him. In more ways than one.

“Yes.”

Dorian’s brows, chin, shoulders hitched in quick succession. Like hope springing eternal. “Yes, you should say something? Or, yes, you’ll…?”

“I’ll wear your ring. One day, after all this is settled.” John smiled, shy and off-center. “Yes.” Dorian stopped breathing, started beaming. Just about glowing with sheer happiness. John curled a hand around his neck and brought their foreheads together. “Just… just let me have a little practice at being your boyfriend, too?”

“We’ll work it in somewhere.”

Yeah. Yeah, OK. Dorian pressed a soft kiss to John’s lips and John leaned into it, idling in the building’s loading zone. Of all places to finally feel hopeful about the future. John could only shake his head, rubbing his nose along Dorian’s, and marvel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The proposal was totally unplanned. (Dorian just sprung it on me and John here.) I was thinking about taking it out but, actually, it becomes a thing later on. So.


	7. A Day at the Beach

The driver’s test was a cinch. It wasn’t even noon and now John and Dorian had the rest of the day to do whatever they wanted before John had to report in for work the next morning.

They went to the beach. Dorian drove. The sandcastle molds sat in the backseat. With towels and power bars and bottled water. And sunscreen, which John had scoffed at. “It’s April!”

“It’s sunny.”

“Kennexes don’t burn.”

“OK, John. If you’re so eager to prove it, go right ahead.”

And he would prove it, too. Dorian could just watch him.

In the meantime, Dorian queued up some old music. Sang obnoxiously as John pressed a smile into his palm, elbow braced against the join between window and door. Instead of wondering (aloud) how an android, whose default setting was perfection, could produce such total caterwauling, John waited for the end of the refrain to ask: “How come it didn’t work? The other night. The lasagna and cannoli.”

The lasagna and cannoli that John had set aside just for Dorian because if Dorian had organic memories of physical sensation, then what about taste?

“I’ve thought about it,” Dorian assured him. That night, after they’d gotten done horsing around and making out, John had presented his plate and his theory. With an intrigued quirk to his lips and a thoughtful frown, Dorian had thumbed a smear of ricotta cheese and tomato sauce. Brought it to his mouth. Licked. And then…

Nothing. No sensations. No organic memories had rushed forward to answer the call of marinara.

“You do have memories for food, right?”

“I do. But they don’t integrate. Not like the others. Not at all.”

A puzzle, indeed. Dorian had promised to look into it. Insofar as he could without access to the fun gizmos at Rudy’s lab.

Now, Dorian said, “I think it’s because my tongue doesn’t have any taste buds.”

“Well, whaddaya know.” John grumbled. “They missed something.”

“So it would seem.”

“You don’t taste me. When I kiss you,” John realized.

Dorian reached over with one hand to pet John’s thigh. “I’m sorry.”

John harrumphed. “You might be sorrier if you could.”

A moment, a mile, passed. The wheels shucked along the asphalt. Too quiet, too quiet, too quiet--

“John?”

“How can you be sure, D? There are things about me that don’t compute. I mean, what if--how can--”

“John, calm down.”

“Calm down,” he muttered. “I’m calm. I’m the king of calm. I’m just--”

“Freaking out.” Dorian met John’s glare with a look that was either challenging or amused. Maybe both. “So there are things about you I don’t know. Can’t know. Do you know everything about me? How many computations I’m capable of per second? How high I can jump or--”

“Damn it, Dorian, those are things I could look up. Or ask Rudy. Or ask you! I can’t describe a taste to you -- not if you’ve got no frame of reference.”

“John, haven’t you ever heard of people who have been blind from birth? Deaf? It’s not as if they live lonely, isolated lives because they’re denied one sense.”

John exhaled. “OK, yeah. You’re right. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, man.” The hand on John’s thigh stirred in a comforting caress that set his skin tingling. “You care that we’re both standing on equal footing. That’s pretty awesome. Really awesome.”

John was not charmed by Dorian’s bemused smirk. Not at all. Wilting back into a slouch, he planted his jaw firmly in his uplifted palm, and just-- “Jesus, Dorian. How do you let an opening like that go?”

“I’m sorry, was I supposed to heckle you for getting cold feet one day into our engagement?”

“Yes, damn it.”

“Hm. Next time. Consider this your free pass, sweet cheeks.”

“What,” John growled, “did you just call me.”

Dorian tried again: “How about ‘sugar plum’?”

“Never again.”

“Baby cakes?”

“First, last, and only time.”

“Pumpkin?”

“Dorian. Cease and desist. Not joking around here.”

Which Dorian evidently sensed because his playful smile melted away. “You’re not going to let me call you by any endearments at all, John?”

John sighed. “They bother me.”

By this point, John didn’t have to look to know that Dorian was confused. After taking a moment, maybe to scan what he knew of human psychology and come up with zilch, Dorian pressed, “Will you tell me why?”

Sure, John could turn this car ride out to the beach into a sob story about failed relationships. He could word vomit into what was “their” space. But, eh. Maybe some other day. Like, never.

He said, “Pet names feel fake, and you’ve always been honest with me, D.”

Dorian shook his head, grin returning. “You are so paranoid, John Kennex.”

“Yeah, but you like me that way.”

“No. I _****love****_ you _****anyway.”****_

And on that, John let Dorian have the last word.

The beach was just as deserted as it had been last December, but warmer. Pretty much ideal except for the fact that the water was still arctic. John watched Dorian splash around in the surf, his trouser legs rolled up precisely to just below the dimples in his knees, waves gushing over his bare toes with every pass of the tide.

On the pretense of checking his messages, John snapped a candid photo on his phone. Because he could think of nothing in this world more awe-inspiring -- nothing for which he was more thankful -- than Dorian’s capacity for joy.

And that was why the DRNs should have rights. Because anything less was just plain cruel.

“Hey D!” John called as he bared a patch of packed, damp sand with his prosthetic foot. “Sandcastle time?”

Dorian galloped over and dived in, knees first. “What do we do?”

John opened his mouth to be smart and snarky about it, but remembered at the last possible moment that Dorian was off the grid. Still. Zero access to any signals at all. So he couldn’t just look up a tutorial online. And John wasn’t going to be an ass and remind him of a time when he _****could have****_ downloaded a couple of hokey home videos of “the kids at the beach,” but hadn’t.

“It’s been a while,” John warned him, trying not to twitch and scowl as he got down on his knees. Unrestrained, welcome-home sex -- the gift that kept right on fucking giving. “We might end up toppling a couple times.”

And they did. They lost one tower that John had spent a lot of attention on in particular, carefully carving out windows with the edge of half a bleached clam shell. But they kept at it until a decent -- if somewhat blocky and not-quite medieval -- structure emerged.

“Let’s take a photo. Before it dries up and blows away!” Dorian posed enthusiastically next to the creation and John leaned back to gain a good angle on the shot.

“Hey!” This time, Dorian protested. “Where do you think you’re going?” A sandy hand on John’s flesh-and-blood ankle gripped and tugged. “You’d better be in this, too.”

“Yeah, yeah.” John obligingly shuffled around, tapping the selfie function on his phone, and let Dorian wrangle him in close until he was sprawled out like a beach bum. He was never going to get all the sand out of these cargos’ pockets. Never, God damn it.

But he was too caught up in Dorian’s happiness to grouch about it.

With his back pressed to Dorian’s chest and the DRN’s arms around his shoulders, John held up the phone at arm’s length and warned: “Smile for your future husband.”

The image was captured in silence and stored. Squiggling up into a sitting position, John said, “I’ll have to send you a copy as soon as you’re back on the network.” In the meantime, he turned the screen toward Dorian so he could see the photo.

But Dorian wasn’t looking at the phone in John’s hand. He was looking at John. Looking at him like he was seriously considering kissing him right here and now in front of God and weather satellites and security drones. “John…”

John looked right back. And if looks could _****kiss,**** _well… those drones and satellites would have been getting a show. “Can you hold that thought until we’re home?”

“I’m going to have to.”

Yeah. But if they played their cards right, then maybe someday he wouldn’t. “C’mon,” John finagled. “Let’s take a couple more. You’re gonna need something to hang on those bare-ass walls of yours.”

So they took more photos. Like a good dozen more photos. Then John ate a power bar and guzzled a bottle of water while they watched the sun set. This time, the clouds were fewer. And as Dorian drove them back to the city, John fidgeted, rubbing his sandy feet together absently, and wondered. The next time he and D made it out this way, would they have actual clear skies? Maybe it wasn’t so much that “practice makes perfect.” More like “persistence makes possible.”

“Hey, D?”

“Hmm?”

“Happy one-year anniversary.” He glanced over and then leaned around just to be sure and, yup, that was Dorian’s amazed smile. The one John earned whenever he managed to surprise him. “Hey! You thought I forgot. Can’t believe you, man,” John bellyached. “Ridiculous.”

“Shut up, John,” Dorian laughed, and then reached a hand over and tangled their fingers together. “Happy anniversary,” he agreed. And it was.


	8. Sofa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: sexytimes

“John?”

“Hmm?”

John didn’t want to move. Had no plans to move ever again. He and the sofa had melded and nothing -- not even the necessity of doing his full physio routine and the lack of excuses to avoid it -- was going to change that fact. Dorian had driven John to his favorite noodle bar. John hadn’t even had to ask. And then he’d chatted and teased at John while he’d stuffed himself silly with carbs and hot sauce. If Dorian hadn’t already beaten him to it, John would have popped the question. Right there on that battered stool.

God. Perfect dates -- perfect days -- did exist. Dorian had made John a believer.

Fingers brushed along John’s arm, the one he’d draped over Dorian’s shoulders. Their bare feet were propped up on the coffee table and when John angled his nose toward his lover’s hair, he inhaled the familiar and comforting scent of soap. Shampoo. Home.

“I submitted my application to the police department.”

He’d suspected that was why Dorian had asked to use the house comms system two seconds after walking in the door. John rubbed his cheek against Dorian’s scalp. “OK.”

“They sent a reply.”

“When was this?”

“You were just finishing up in the shower.”

A reply at nine p.m. And a reminder that the department never slept. Not really. Someone was always watching. Usually, John chose to believe that that someone was Sandra. This time, the itch between his shoulders didn’t let him get away with it.

Dorian undoubtedly sensed his tension; he sat up and John’s hand slid to the DRN’s shoulder, his fingers plucking at the T-shirt Dorian had borrowed from him after their showers. He’d suggested that they go shopping or even order some things online, but Dorian had prevaricated: “That’s what I want to use my first salary for.”

So, in the meantime, he was wearing some of John’s things while his DRN uniform was in the washer.

John nudged: “What’d they say?”

“I’m scheduled to take the procedural test tomorrow. Eight forty-five a.m.”

“At the academy?” The rooms used for testing there had been designed to detect and thwart cheating. No network access. No signals.

Dorian nodded.

“I’ll drive you,” John offered. It would make more sense for Dorian to drive John to Delta Division and then head over to the academy, but the cruiser was police property. Signed out to Detective Kennex. They’d been pushing it a bit today: John letting Dorian drive. “I wish I could stay and, y’know, send some positive thoughts your way.”

“Now that’s funny,” Dorian joshed. “You -- thinking positive thoughts.”

John hitched a shoulder up. “I guess even grumps lose their game. Every once in a while.”

“A grump off his game…” Dorian leaned over John’s lazy sprawl and murmured against his lips. “Whatever shall we do about that?”

Oh, John knew what he’d like to do. He’d like to have a repeat of Sunday afternoon. But damn it, he’d just settled into a position that didn’t make something throb or sting and…

“John?”

And of course Dorian picked up on his hesitation.

John cupped Dorian’s cheek in one hand, but Dorian ignored the contact. “Sorry, man. We don’t have to do anything tonight.”

Before Dorian could pull away, John got a good grip on the T-shirt fabric. “Hold up. It’s not an all-or-nothing.”

“But you’re--”

“Maybe not up for the whole game, but I think I’ve got one round in me.”

“Mixing sports metaphors? Again?”

No way was Dorian getting away with distracting John now. “What do you want, D?”

Sobering, Dorian answered, “I don’t want to ask for something you don’t want to do.”

“Ask. I’ll tell you if it’s a no-go. You’d do the same for me, right?” When Dorian nodded, John added, “So. One round -- I’m all yours.”

And then John waited. Waited as Dorian looked him up and down. Bit his lip in sexy-as-hell thought. Tilted his chin down. Looked up at John through his lashes. And when he asked, the question came in the form of a kiss.

John answered it in kind, ceding when Dorian’s tongue slid along his lower lip, and settling his hands on the DRN’s hips when he crouched over John’s lap.

“John…”

“Yeah, D. Name it.”

Nibbling at John’s jaw, he did: “I want to come.”

“Hmm,” John wholeheartedly agreed and slid his hands under the hem of the T-shirt. He scraped his nails up Dorian’s spine. Feathered the callused edge of a thumb over a pert nipple. Dorian arched and stretched and shifted, directing John’s hands to the waistband of his borrowed track pants. 

“You want these outta the way?” John purred into Dorian’s neck and felt a vigorous nod.

“Yes. I want them gone, John.”

“Yeah? What do you want touching you right now?”

“Just you.”

John complied, tugging the T-shirt up and over Dorian’s head and then yanking the waistband down before the DRN’s hands settled back on John’s shoulders. John studied the landscape of his lover’s form. Somewhere in a lab or office or coffee shop long ago, someone had decided on each and every one of these lines. Angles and curves and proportions. Someone had sculpted this being. Had they done so out of hope that it would one day beg for their touch as Dorian now mewled for John’s?

Lucky. John had never felt more lucky in his entire life that he did right now with the gift of Dorian’s trust and want balanced over his lap.

His hands swept, fingers splayed and greedy, over Dorian’s chest and sides. Circled his ass and trailed over the jut where hipbones would be. “You feeling all this, D?”

“Yes.”

“And this?” John’s hand curled around Dorian’s prominent arousal and tugged gently. “You feel this?”

Dorian nodded. “Yes.”

“This what you want?” Another infinitely soft caress. A tease. A barely-there brush of skin that would have made a flesh-and-blood man snarl with impatience.

Dorian’s hands buried in John’s hair. He still hadn’t gotten a haircut and Dorian’s fingers were tangling the damp locks with glee. Tugging and then combing. John teased him again with a single fingertip this time, a gliding motion along the underside.

“Ah-haaah!”

The flesh leaped and jumped in response to each fleeting touch. Tiny sounds, not pleas for more but exclamations of overwhelming sensation.

“You want this, too?” John flicked his fingers between those strong thighs, brief friction against as much skin as possible, but Dorian drew his hips back and angled forward and John found his hand in possession of that impressive length once again.

Yeah. OK. John could take a hint. A whisper of touch -- hardly more than a breeze -- but Dorian responded as though he were being inundated with sensation. His jaw clenched and eyes squeezed shut and even when John had used his mouth, he’d never seen Dorian so completely lost to it.

“You want my voice?” John whispered, low in his chest. “Want me to talk you up to the edge?” And when Dorian’s jaw went slack, John took that as a yes.

And then he floundered. Because Dorian didn’t need to hear how sexy he was or how John didn’t deserve him. Dorian wasn’t riding John’s lap and dry sobbing at these minuscule caresses because John thought he was beautiful and perfect. He was here because neither of them knew where tomorrow would take them. He was scared and they both had so much to lose… before they’d even really had the chance to enjoy the gains.

“It’s always gonna be just like this. You and me. You give me what I need, D. Make me the man I was born to be. I can hold my head up because of you.”

Dorian’s hands tunneled through John’s hair as he started panting. Hot breaths hit John’s face because, shit, core temperature rising.

“I wanna do that for you. I want to be that man for you, D. Bring you out. Build you up. So proud of who you’re becoming.”

Skin on synthetic skin and “John…” and he’d only just gotten started. John’s own arousal was at a low simmer, filling out and lying heavy against his thigh. The pleasure he gained from watching Dorian’s -- it infused his tired body with warmth and--

“I love you,” he breathed and Dorian’s eyes snapped open, seeking something from John’s gaze. Searching. “I want the world for you. I want a life for us. I wanna wear your ring. I love you. I’m in love with you. And I wanna wake up to you--”

And then, with the barest flick of fingers over taut flesh, Dorian gasped. Cried out. A hot, shuddering breath washed over John as his lover came. Hard. Maybe harder than ever before. Must be. Had to be. Because suddenly Dorian was tipping forward like he was losing balance and John was scrambling to wedge his hands against the DRN’s chest, trying to keep from being squashed and bruised, sandwiched between a piece of furniture and whole lot of android.

Dorian sucked in a breath, hands shooting out to brace himself against the sofa back. “Sorry, man. Sorry.”

“Shhh. You OK?”

“Oh, my God, John.”

John pressed his smile into the flesh of Dorian’s bare chest and petted his lower back in slow, leisurely passes. _****Was that good for you?**** _John didn’t bother to ask. Dorian was still focused on lowering his core temperature and that was answer enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once upon a time, I planned to have Dorian study at the police academy like a regular cadet... but then I realized how unnecessary that would be since Dorian can download all the information and he can definitely pass the physical exam. The only reason for Dorian to go through the police academy would be to make friends with other up-and-coming cops. But Dorian has already proven himself in Delta Division. So, I decided to make this part go really fast so that we could get to some exciting police work sooner. (^_^)
> 
> Still, some part of me finds it really appealing to imagine John picking Dorian up from the academy and sneaking a kiss behind some shrubbery or something. Heh.


	9. Back in the Bullpen

In a perfect world, John wouldn’t hesitate to caress Dorian’s face nearer and angle himself in for a quick kiss. A soft press of lips for luck. In a more enlightened world, he would have dared. But the world they lived in was neither perfect nor enlightened, so John had to be content with a pat on the arm at the police academy reception desk.

“You’re gonna do great,” John reminded Dorian.

Dorian smiled, arms hanging loose at his sides. It was like they were on the job again: a detective and a police-issue android.

_****Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!**** _Because Dorian should feel comfortable with initiating casual contact between them. Wasn’t this what the state court had made possible? But it wouldn’t be very professional and the impression Dorian made now would resonate to all DRNs.

Not fucking fair.

“Have a good day, Detective Kennex. Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime, buddy.”

And when Dorian turned his full attention to the sign-in pad that the receptionist was pushing toward him, John decided that was his cue to exit stage.

“You’re in a mood,” Paul observed as John braced one hand against the break room counter and jabbed at the coffee machine buttons with the other. “Where’s your better half? Need to get him in here before you kill the coffee machine.”

“It’s not my fault the damn thing doesn’t work.”

“It works,” Paul insisted, reaching around John’s arm to hit the reset button and then tap out John’s stalled order. The machine beeped, hissed, and hot coffee finally hit the bottom of the cup.

“Damn it,” John grouched, glaring at Paul’s cocky smirk.

“Well. This explains why the coffee machine didn’t malfunction once while you were gone. Mystery solved.”

“Yeah, good job. You finally cleared one case. Only took you twenty-odd years.”

Paul huffed, but didn’t back down. He glanced around, ensuring that yes they were completely alone in the room and no one was passing by the glass partitions, before blurting, “We really going to keep on doing this, Kennex?”

The coffee maker tweetled a little tune of accomplishment as the spout shut off. John collected his cup and moved aside but didn’t ask, “Do what?” John knew what they were doing. What they’d always done. Take the frustrations of the job out on each other. Instead, he said, “I dunno, Paul. Being civil to one another might just kill us both.”

Paul tucked his coffee mug under the dispenser and inputted his order. “Hey, if you’ve got the energy to keep duking it out, like hell I’m backing down.”

John sipped his coffee. Grimaced. He didn’t remember 165 degrees being this hot.

“I just figured that Dorian could use some friends,” Paul continued, “that don’t bite each other’s heads off at every opportunity.”

Oh, ouch. John was feeling the burn as he cleared his throat and admitted, “Yeah. He’d probably appreciate that.”

“Not that I’m gonna stop calling you on your bullshit.”

“Not that I’m gonna stop letting the world know when you’re being a dick.”

Paul snorted. Held out his hand. John straightened up from his slouch and shook it.

“This’ll be fun,” Paul declared as the coffee maker tooted its own horn.

“Yeah. What an adventure.”

Grinning at John’s underwhelming enthusiasm, he added two sugars to his cup and stirred. “Besides,” Paul tacked on as though in afterthought, “I hear Maldonado’s taking some time off. It’ll be good for you to be on decent terms with the new guy in charge for a change.”

And Paul honestly thought that he’d get to play dress up, huh? Yeah, he’d figure out real fast just what a thankless pain in the ass it was to be acting captain of Delta Division. John could hardly wait for the big reveal. He smirked. “Better you than me.” 

“John, I’m taking two weeks. Starting Monday,” the captain told him not two hours later. John was still ploughing through the cold cases that had piled up during his stint over the Wall. He was supposed to be providing fresh eyes and getting up to speed all at the same time. It was desk work bullshit, but since he wasn’t in a rush to be rubbing elbows with an MX, he didn’t bother to complain. Yet.

Instead, he focused on Maldonado’s announcement. Why she’d called him into her office for it, he had no clue. Was this part of a New Year’s resolution to spend more one-on-one time with her people? “Um, congratulations. Any plans?”

“Thank you, and yes.” She didn’t elaborate and he wasn’t surprised. “While I’m away, I’m naming a Delta Division detective to act in my stead. You, John.”

Whoa. No. No, no, oh hell no!

That last bit actually managed to make it past John’s horror-clenched throat, echoing in the office. Sandra quirked a brow at him, frowning in confusion. “I don’t see the problem, John. Everyone else has on-going cases. You could do with a little more time to get caught up--”

“Oh, like last time?” When Sandra had bullied him into coming back to work, dangling the opportunity to make headway against InSyndicate right in front of his nose. “When I was caught up on exactly nothing?”

“I’m changing tack,” she easily deflected. “That is part of the job, you know. Acknowledging when something needs improvement.”

John sputtered. His chest felt hollow, lungs carved out. “And you think I can bring improvement to your job. No. Damn it. Don’t do this to me. Offer the job to your successor. Please, please, please don’t let that be me.”

She looked down and away, but not before he’d caught a peek of her grin. “I won’t get to choose my successor, John, but I can choose who to pass the reins to while I’m on vacation.”

“Why me?” He wasn’t whining. Much.

Maldonado considered him, lips pursed in thought--

_****Chirp! Chirp!** ** _

John’s gaze darted down to her phone, which she scooped up and glanced at. “Hm. Dorian’s done with his exams. As captain of Delta Division, I receive alerts like this on any personnel of interest.”

John blinked and… holy shit. Was she doing what John thought she was doing?

“I understand if that would annoy you. I can make sure you don’t have little things like this disrupting your day.”

Or she could make sure they did. There was no one sneakier than Sandra Maldonado. Son of a bitch.

“OK. Fine. Monday it is.”

“Thanks, John.”

“Yeah, yeah. Send over whatever I gotta be up to speed on--”

“Already did.”

The cold case files. Of fucking course. “--and don’t expect me to sit down with the brass for meetings. If I have to explain why we need a budget for--for--” John flung an arm wide, searching for an appropriately ridiculous example. “--for facial tissues and duct tape, it’s gonna get ugly.”

“Duly noted.”

“No political crap, either.”

“Of course not.”

“And I’m not wearing a suit. Or dress blues.”

“Understood.”

Yeah, she understood all right. Here John was practically panting with exertion and his ultimatums hadn’t even punched a single hole in her victory balloon. In a last ditch effort, he informed her, “They’re going to call you back in early. That’s how bad I’m going to be at this.”

“No they won’t.” That confidence. It couldn’t be real. Could it? She smiled and, chin tilting up, returned fire: “You’re going to be better at this than you expect.”

Sure. Why not do everyone a favor and surprise himself. Sounded fun.

“I’ll make the announcement tomorrow at roll call.”

“You do that.” At least the look on Paul’s face would be h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s. “So.” John nodded toward the phone still in her hand. “How’d Dorian do?”

“What makes you think I get access to information like that?”

But she did. She totally did. The smug tilt to her brows practically screamed it.

“You should let him tell you.”

“Sandra…”

“Don’t steal his thunder, John. You’ll survive until quitting time.”

Well, yeah. He supposed he would. But he didn’t have to be gracious about it, so he wasn’t. He stomped back to his desk, drawing Val’s gaze. She was smart enough not to ask what was wrong and if there was anything she could do to help.

Paul wasn’t.

“Finally getting an MX of your very own?”

Val jumped in. “Sure, Richard. We get it. You’re a big boy, too.”

Her patronizing tone cheered John immensely. In fact, were he to credit anything with allowing him to power through the rest of the day, it would be that. And coffee.

Twenty minutes later, Sergeant Dale Truelove jogged up the steps and knocked on the captain’s door. John squinted in thought, but kept that particular thought to himself. If Truelove’s conference was about what John thought it was about, then hell yeah. Awesome. But he couldn’t tell Dorian. No way. Because if John were wrong -- hey, it happened sometimes! -- then a disappointed Dorian was just not someone he wanted to be the cause of. Ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A police captain probably wouldn’t chose his/her replacement (like Sandra does here) when he/she takes vacation time. That would already be set up -- an established chain of command for daily operations: chief, captain, lieutenant, sergeant, officer (in order of greater authority to lesser).
> 
> But Sandra gets to select who pinch hits for her here, so let’s just go with it, yeah?


	10. Over-caffeinated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: sexytimes (^_~)

“So? How’d it go?” John blurted by way of greeting. And inquiry into Dorian’s day.

His enthusiasm amused Dorian, who playfully retorted, “How did you ever sit through a successful stakeout, man? You have no patience whatsoever.”

“Hey, I can be patient--”

“Then wait until we get back to your place.”

“--I just don’t want to right now.”

“John.”

“Dorian. Damn it, you’re lucky I’m not getting on your case for not calling me until shift was almost over.” How was that not sadistic? John would like someone to explain.

“Drive, John.”

“Make me.”

“I could.” Which was true. John remembered how Dorian had taken control of the cruiser (and John’s sanity) when he’d decided that Forney needed-and-absolutely-must-have a ride-along.

Dorian nodded toward the side view mirror: “But I think this approaching MX will do it for me. You’re parked in a loading zone.”

John growled, started the car, and pulled out into the street. “There. Happy?”

“No. I want to hear about your day. That would make me happy.”

John ran a hand over his hair. Thumped the steering wheel. “Oh, my God. You are killing me.”

“You think this is easy for me? For all I know, you were out on call. At a crime scene. In pursuit of a suspect. Getting shot at--”

“Nothing like that happened. Not even remotely.” And John’s day probably would have been better if it had. Exhaling hard, John tersely listed the highlights: “Paul thinks he’s getting a shot at the captain’s job; Sandra has you tagged as a person of interest; Val still comes up with the best comebacks; and the coffee machine hates me. The end.”

John enjoyed the tiny pulse of shocked silence that followed. A teeny tiny revenge for the hair-pulling hell he’d been through today. That Dorian could have alleviated with a phone call. A phone call, damn it.

“Is there a possibility of Detective Paul being promoted?”

“Nah.” John waved the very thought out the cruiser window. “Sandra’s taking vacation. Paul thinks she’ll want Captain Energy to fill in.” Dorian nodded, lips twitching, and John further confided, “Don’t worry. You don’t have to be nice to him.”

“What a relief. Is the captain concerned about my job performance?”

Ah, the next highlight, taken in sequence. “Uh, no. No, it’s got nothing to do with your capabilities. You are shit-ton capable, OK? I was just standing there when the alert came in on her phone.” John cleared his throat and stated the obvious: “She just wants to make sure you get a fair shot at this.”

“I appreciate that.” Three words that Dorian had been saying a lot recently. And it was starting to grate on John’s nerves because Dorian was owed decent treatment. It was about damn time he started expecting-- and downright demanding -- it. But John would save that argument for another time.

Dorian asked, “What was Detective Stahl’s comeback?”

“No, no. I’d butcher it.” And, in the process, remind them both of the fact that there were MXs in their respective futures. Damn it, no; John was not going to think about that tonight. “You’ll have to see for yourself the next time you take a peek at the bullpen footage.”

Again, silence descended. John drove and waited for it. Waited for it. Waited…

Dorian turned his way and volleyed: “I could have told you about the coffee machine, John. You’re not an easy man to get along with. Before or after caffeine.”

Shock. Total shock. That was what Dorian was angling for and John delivered. In spades. “Shut up. I’m nice! To you.”

Dorian swallowed his retort behind a smile. “Would you like me to have a word with the coffee machine on your behalf?”

“What--you would--no. You’ll just tell it to switch me over to decaf.” And the consequences of that would be disastrous.

“You had five cups of coffee today,” Dorian assessed. “That’s too much. Even for you.”

“No.” John refused to believe it. Any of it. “I’m fine. Stop scanning me.”

“Maybe you should run a dozen laps when we get home. You’re all hyped up.”

“Run laps,” John muttered and then clamped his mouth shut because they were in the cruiser on a very well-lit public road with city surveillance cameras and the thought that had just popped into John’s head did not belong here. Not even if he dressed its needy, naked self up in a trench coat.

“Or,” Dorian offered in an offhanded tone that John was immediately suspicious of, “we could try this one other thing. Should work just as well.”

John’s gaze skipped toward his lover in two quick passes. “Yeah? What’s that?”

“You’ll see.”

And John was back to not-quite banging on the steering wheel in frustration. Well, fine, if Dorian was gonna play hard-to-get, then John would do him one better. He didn’t say another word. Not even when they crossed the threshold of the apartment. He just put out an arm, barring Dorian from taking another step and gave him a meaningful look.

Dorian smirked. “I passed. Procedure. Physical. Psych. I report in at Delta Division for assignment tomorrow morning.”

Damn, that was fast. But also excellent, excellent news. “I told you you’d be great,” John couldn’t resist bragging. He cupped Dorian’s face in his hands and leaned in for a slow kiss.

And when he leaned back, Dorian countered: “And I told you that I have a fix for your excess energy.”

“Do you now,” John mused, already sliding his hands down to his lover’s strong shoulders. “Are both of us wearing clothes for this activity?”

“No.” Dorian’s smile was pure sin. Absolute evil. And John loved it. “Just me.”

Just Dorian was right. Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That was pretty much the only thought John was capable of as he braced his elbows against the comms table, head bowed and breath puffing against the glass tabletop. He could just glimpse Dorian’s trousers and shoes if he looked down past his own bare skin. If. A tall order when the thick length of Dorian’s slicked arousal was filling him up slow, slow, slow and John couldn’t do a damn thing to speed up the process. Not with a pair of bar stools under his spread thighs and ass hanging out in thin air. Hands gripped his hips, strong and capable, and John trusted Dorian not to let him fall. Or leave him hanging.

“I was thinking about you today, John,” Dorian whispered, breath a little warmer than usual puffing against the back of John’s neck. “I’m actually kind of glad you had too much coffee. Otherwise you’d have been too tired for this.”

A shock of air exploded from John’s lungs as Dorian rocked into him -- three tiny thrusts in quick succession that, at this angle, made fireworks explode under his skin. Fingernails scraped over the tabletop and a thin whine eked past his gritted teeth as Dorian withdrew. Almost to the point of being out completely. Paused there and John rocked his hips back, taking more of his own weight on his elbows just for a smidgen of leverage.

“You’re making me crazy.”

“Crazy’s a good look on you, John. See?”

And then one hand left John’s skin, tapping the control panel and the comms monitor activated, flashed once before the camera looped its video feed right back to them. Its focus centered halfway between them, producing blurry-edged forms. Bare skin and a fully-clothed figure leaning in from behind. Fully clothed with a bare cock that was sliding in again, sensation shivering up John’s spine and along his arms, which shook and damn damn damn. All he could do was press his chest to the glass and breathe and burn and please Dorian you gotta--just gimme a little more damn it--I can take it please--ah, fucking fuck it in--no, no, all the way all the way all the way--yessss just oh, oh, oh--

What John babbled aloud. What he babbled only in his head. He didn’t know. Didn’t care. Dorian was taking care of him so, so good. So warm and slick and stretched out wide. The perfect remedy for John’s jumpy pulse and itchy shoulders and this--was--so--good.

He was never going to be able to have a conversation with anyone at this comms set again without feeling the plunge and drag deep, deep, deep down.

“You feel that, John?”

John nodded, a moan stuttering out in time with each rub against his prostate.

“You like that.”

He nodded again. “Um-hmm.”

“I do, too. I like feeling you from the inside.”

And John liked feeling him there. Liked it. Wanted it. Needed it.

Lips and hot breath and kisses across his spine as Dorian set a steady rhythm and oh yes yes yes. John was so ready to come he was already seeing stars, straining for it, jaw clenched and--

And a hand in his hair. A soft tug. “Watch us, John. Watch.”

And then Dorian’s grip shifted, hiking John’s hips higher and smooth, warm fingers curled around his cock in a fist. John stared at the screen as Dorian fucked into him--thrust, thrust, thrust--and then looked down through the glass at the warm fist that he fucked in turn with each burst of momentum.

Oh, Jesus.

The burn started in his belly, pumping hotter and tighter. Then it was shooting up his spine, exploding out of his cock, making his fingers and toes tingle, his lungs flatten, his mind blank. And Dorian just rolled him through it until the tingles turned into pixie dust and sunshine sparkles under every inch of his skin.

And this. This right here. This was his limit. He was done. So done. “Dorian,” he rasped, throat dry and tongue heavy. “Now you, D. C’mon.”

“Let me see you, John.”

With a monumental effort, John rolled his leaden skull up onto his chin. Met Dorian’s stare in the projection, and smiled. “Show me what you got.”

Oh, he did. And when John moaned at the sensory overload, cock twitching in vain and hips tilting up for more, Dorian came on a familiar gasp and pause. John panted, turned on by the sound of Dorian’s overheated gasps. This. Just this. More of this would never be enough.

The inevitable sensation of loss -- John bowed his head as Dorian slowly pulled back and out, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses down John’s spine in compensation for the aching emptiness.

“You’re going to be sore tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah.” But not as sore as he’d be on Friday. The second day-after was always the worst. “Worth it,” he sighed, focusing on the happy buzz vibrating in his veins. A sensation that could go on forever as far as John was concerned. He’d just spend the rest of eternity slumped over the furniture. But he did have to move because shower, dinner, physio. He couldn’t just be a fucked out mess for all time.

So when Dorian maneuvered him firmly off the stools and stood him upright, John went with the flow. Turning in those strong arms and kissing soft lips. “I never would have guessed I’d want this,” John confessed, still caught in the post-coital net of loose limbs and over-confidence. “But I do. With you. You make me want it.”

Android pride. This was a thing. Most definitely a thing if Dorian’s smug, self-satisfied smile was anything to go by.


	11. Newest Recruit

Thursday started off great. Dorian rode in with John to the precinct, where he’d be receiving his patrol assignment.

It was rare, but occasionally rookie officers were paired up with a supervisor in Delta Division. And, apparently, this was one of those rare cases. Either because Dorian was a DRN and a trial case and thus under close scrutiny, or because he hadn’t graduated with a class. Special treatment, either way.

But Dorian’s assigned precinct pretty much confirmed John’s hunch as to why Truelove had been called to the captain’s office the afternoon before.

“Why are you smiling?”

Hah. Dorian sounded almost as suspicious as John.

“I’m a nervous wreck,” Dorian elucidated, “and you’re Mister Sunshine with a side of Giggles Delight.”

“Hey,” John drawled, “I got cause. My incredible fiancé treated me right last night.”

That surprised a bashful grin out of Dorian. “Is that so?”

“Yeah,” John said simply and resisted the urge to shift, to coax an echo of overused muscles to thrum and throb between and along his thighs. This was so not the place. Or the time. But he’d managed to put a smile on Dorian’s face, so it was all good. Plus, the aspirin John had swallowed with his morning coffee would be kicking in just as they pulled in to the garage. Perfect timing.

They arrived over thirty minutes early. Plenty of time for the chores on Dorian’s To-Do list. Like registering at reception. This time, Dorian wasn’t flagged as a visitor. Thank God. Otherwise, John’s good mood would have burned up real fast.

But there was no confusion: Dorian-0167 was a bonafide officer-in-training, which meant access to most of the workplaces in the building. No alarms were triggered when they stepped out of the atrium and into the elevator. So, that was a win. John pushed the button for the second basement level where the logistics department was located. Dorian needed a uniform, a duty rig, a side arm, and a radio.

“The radio is kind of overkill,” Dorian opined as he changed in the locker room, but he slid it into the sleeve on his belt all the same.

“Well, yours isn’t operational right now,” John couldn’t not point out.

“Yes. It’s something I need to discuss with the captain.”

“Good thing that’s our next stop.” He handed Dorian a brand new (and still in its retail packaging) combination lock for his locker. Not that Dorian would be locking up anything besides his dreary DRN duds. It was the principle. Everyone else got to have a lock on their locker -- got to enjoy this much privacy at work -- and Dorian was one of them now.

Dorian regarded the lock in his hand for a moment, a wistful expression tugging at his features, and John wondered if this was a first for him. But before John had time to get all indignant and bent out of shape over it, Dorian tore open the plastic packaging and went to snap the lock in place.

“Whoa, whoa. Hold up. Test it first,” John advised and Dorian humored him. Even though, with Dorian’s advanced hearing abilities, he could probably tell just by listening when he’d hit the right sequence of numbers, whether or not they matched the sealed and (for-the-user’s-eyes-only) printed combination. But it worked and Dorian snapped the lock on his locker and whatdaya know. Roll call time.

Officers currently undergoing the required six months of training and probationary employment weren’t actually allowed in the bullpen unless they were in the company of a senior officer and Dorian refused to push his luck. “I’ll hang back here on the landing. You go ahead.”

John just rolled his eyes. He trotted down the steps and then leaned against the railing near Dorian’s knees. There. Rules obeyed. To the letter if not the spirit: Dorian wasn’t standing in the bullpen and John was. Sandra called everyone to attention. Gave the usual updates and a rundown of do-it-now-or-else’s.

Both Val and Paul had new cases. Homicides that looked infinitely more interesting and productive than the case files John was still wading through. God. This right here was Captain Maldonado’s plan all along. It probably had a snazzy title, too. Something like: How To Get Kennex To Voluntarily Resign Himself To Working With An MX.

“Dorian,” the captain greeted, approaching him on the raised walkway. She held out her hand. They shook.

“Captain. I’m glad to be back.”

“The uniform suits you.” And then she glared at John. “What are you doing, Kennex?”

“Getting the gossip firsthand. What’s it look like?”

“It looks like those case files aren’t going to review themselves. That’s what it looks like.”

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“And here I’d always had you pegged as a hard worker.”

“Work smarter, not harder.”

Dorian laughed. “Smarter, huh?” But the jibe stopped there. Guy Code rule. Dorian was way ahead of Paul in this department.

John smacked Dorian’s boot. “Eh, go stomp some pavement.” He turned away because, at that moment, Dale Truelove was making his way through the bullpen and John had this one chance to intercept him and make it look like pure happenstance.

“Kennex.”

“DT. Hey,” John held up a hand to stall the man’s beeline for the captain. “You getting a probie today?”

The officer squinted at John, but didn’t deny it. “You going to wish me luck?”

John continued, “If it’s who I think it is, you’re not gonna need luck.”

Truelove squinted past John to where Dorian was speaking quietly with Maldonado. He scanned the DRN, noting the crisp look of a brand new uniform and the light bulb clicked on. “Damn,” the man muttered on a smile that curved with respect. “She didn’t say. He could push for them to waive it, right? He’s already put a year in with Delta Division.”

Yeah, maybe Dorian could have fought it. As to why he hadn’t, well. John encouraged, “Go on and ask him. Have good one, DT.”

“Yeah, you, too. Oh, and Kennex--”

John paused.

“I’ve got his back.”

John nodded. Yeah, he knew. Truelove was as solid as the Rockies. John couldn’t have picked a better partner for Dorian’s stint on patrol duty. Yeah, Sandra’s scoreboard racked up yet another point.

With a sense of wistful satisfaction, John sat himself down at his desk. Watched from his chair as Dorian and Dale shook hands and followed the captain into her office to get the skinny on their first assignment.

John’s phone chose that moment to trill at him. He sighed as he lifted it to his ear. To be honest, he kind of missed being off the grid. Resetting the functions yesterday so that he could fully participate in the police network had been like attending a funeral. At least the photos he’d taken at the beach had been transferred off the memory chip and onto John’s home tablet. No way did he want a tech seeing those.

“Kennex,” he gruffed.

“Detective Kennex. This is Cherylinn Blane with Officers Safety. Our records indicate that you had your locator chip removed and it needs to be replaced.”

Oh, wonderful. “Yeah.”

“Medical Assist -- at your precinct -- has received your previous device from Doctor Lom. When you have time today, stop by. The procedure will only take twenty minutes and then you’ll be cleared for full duty.”

“Understood. Thank you.” Disconnecting the call, John glanced from the open file directory scrolling down his monitor to the spot on his arm where the chip had once been implanted. The sad thing was that getting it stuck back in was probably going to be the best part of his day because: desk work versus medical procedure. Now there was a toss-up.

* * *

“Hey. I bet your day was more exciting than mine,” John teased as Dorian walked up to his desk. John could have clocked out an hour ago, but he’d been waiting for Dorian. Managed to knock down three more files in that time, too. And give himself a dehydration headache. Yeah, John was still hard at work, but the aspirin had long since gone home for the night. So John was an achy mess and he had every reason to be grouchy and snarly. Instead, he was smiling up at Dorian’s happy expression like he was greeting the sunrise. 

“I’m sure it was. I’ll tell you all about it if you give me a ride back to my place?”

“It’s a deal. Just need a sec.” John double checked that he’d saved his notes and then shut down the terminal. In two minutes, he was standing up and biting back a growl because, oh yeah. He was really feeling the love from last night. Feeling it big time.

Dorian insisted on collecting a bottle of water from the break room and, as soon as they got in the cruiser, Dorian was sliding a convenience-store two-pack of aspirin into John’s hand. “Here, man.” He held out the water bottle and John just went with it, tearing open the packet, shaking the pills onto his tongue, and sucking down half the water in one go. Which turned out to be a mistake. Because so much chilled water after a day of room temperature coffee equaled brain freeze. Perfect.

“Am I dropping you off at your place?” John checked, manfully powering through the sudden and searing headache. “You still haven’t moved in, have you?”

“No. I need to charge. Take me home.”

Home. OK. It was a quiet drive. John didn’t notice how quiet until he was sitting at the table, halfway through the stir fry that Dorian had insisted on cooking for his dinner.

“Hey. Thanks for this.” He lifted the slivered peppers, onions, and squid held in his chopsticks. “It’s really good.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“You know that you don’t have to cook, right?”

“I don’t mind doing my share around here, John.”

Doing his share. Well, now this sounded like it was about to get heavy. John got up and plucked a beer from the refrigerator. Sat back down. Poured himself a glass. Sipped. There was no way that little bit of alcohol could to do more than cross his tongue, but the smell and the froth and the crisp glide -- it was psychological. John expected it would help him relax, so he did relax. In anticipation of actual effects.

“Dorian,” John began carefully. “This is your home, too. I mean, yeah, officially, you live somewhere else. And we’ll get a charger for you there and whatever, but…” John poked at the stir fry, organizing little piles of green chillis and orange bell peppers. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“If I don’t, then who does?”

“What.” John scooted closer, stretching a leg under the table to make contact with Dorian’s. Just to touch. “Something happen today with DT? Sergeant Truelove?”

“No. Today was pretty routine. But something the sergeant said made me realize--”

“Wait. What did he say?”

“That, as an officer-in-training, I’m required to follow his instructions, no questions asked. Because he’s responsible for my safety and the safety of the people and property that we come into contact with.”

John nodded. He vaguely remembered getting the same speech. Back in the day. “He do something that you--”

“No. It was a good day. But I realized--John, you were responsible for me in the same way. And you never wanted to be. You never asked for an android partner, let alone a DRN.”

John put his chopsticks down. “I had a choice. I could work in the field with an android partner or I could work at a desk. Yeah, I wasn’t thrilled with the idea because…”

Dorian’s leg shifted against John’s. An encouraging caress.

“Because I could barely cope with myself. I wanted something familiar. A human partner. Somebody who’d be responsible for their own actions, somebody who could stand on their own and who’d force me to stand on my own. That was what I wanted. It wasn’t what was best for me.”

Ah, yes. There. That soft, slowly growing smile. Maybe that was John’s favorite. “Is that what you really believe?”

“Hey. It’s what I know.” Because working with a human would have fed his fear of failure and working with an MX would have just made John angrier and more resentful. A seething mass of regret and fury. But working with Dorian had healed him, had brought back so much of the good that had been blasted to ash in the InSyndicate raid.

John reached across the table and Dorian’s hand met his in the middle. “What I said to the android officer’s review chairman, I said I wouldn’t still be a cop if it weren’t for you.” John sucked in a breath, “But what I meant was I wouldn’t have the chance to be myself again. If it weren’t for you.”

“John…”

“Now, now, don’t get all mushy on me.” John’s thumb caressed comforting circles into the back of Dorian’s hand. “Because this is just as unfair to you.”

“How is this unfair?”

“D, you never had a choice in your partner. At all. Never had a choice as to how far you’d go or the risks you’d take to have my back and give me a shot at making it though the day.”

Dorian shook his head. “You still know jack shit about my programming, man.”

John huffed on a bubble of humor. “Oh, yeah? Whose fault is that for never explaining?”

“Oh, it’s all yours. For never listening.”

“Yeah, OK. I’m listening now.”

“You woke me up, John. There was always going to be that bond between us. For me.” Dorian paused and then dived deeper: “It’s like when you save someone’s life. There’s a connection that forms. It doesn’t always turn into something more, even friendship.”

“It’s got a healthy dose of respect, though. Something you’ve never shown me.”

Dorian disagreed with a rueful tilt of his head. “That’s not true. I showed you as much as I could. But a man who doesn’t believe he deserves respect, won’t accept it. I offered, and you threw it back in my face. Synthetic: off.”

John’s fingers curled tighter around the hand still in his grasp. “Shit. Dorian, I--”

“No. Don’t. I wasn’t the best behaved partner, either.”

“Because you told me off in the bullpen?”

“You needed to be told off. No. It was when we met Forney. I pushed. I pushed too hard. Because I was still angry about being shut off. My service record was good. Really good. Great. And it didn’t matter. Obeying commands and doing my job and putting human lives first -- it counted for nothing.”

And if John understood anything at all about Dorian, it was this. This feeling of waste. Wasted time and effort and pain. “So you pushed me.”

“I pushed. But you didn’t report me. That was when I got it: you knew what I’d been through. Maybe it wasn’t the same, but…”

But it was pretty damn close, yeah. The betrayal, the darkness, the world that didn’t want either of them in it anymore.

“You let me push. At the time, I thought that was what I needed. It wasn’t until I had to remove Forney’s access to his previous work as a police officer that I realized what you were doing. Teaching me a lesson. About how life’s not fair. For anyone. So, I… I let Forney keep one. His memory of saving Philip. I didn’t take that one back.”

John sighed, long-held suspicions confirmed. One memory. Dorian had let Forney keep one memory. And now here they all were. For better or worse.

“You could be made to answer for that,” Dorian concluded, “because, at the time, you were responsible for me, for my actions. John, I never intended to put you in that position.”

“I know.” John leaned over the table and pulled Dorian’s hand toward him, pressing a hard kiss to warm, unnatural skin. “But I let myself be put there, and I’m good with it,” he said, meeting Dorian’s gaze. “We’re partners.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this universe, police officers don’t get their uniforms from a shop. (In the States, police academy graduates are given a voucher for their first uniform. If it gets lost or damaged, they have to pay for replacements and provide proof of employment.) In this fic, uniforms are distributed/sold by the department. Not every department has a stock of uniforms, but Delta Division is in a pretty big facility, so yeah they have just about every size/item on hand.
> 
> Sergeant Truelove is from Pilot, The Bends, and Simon Says. Maybe more episodes than that.
> 
> I don’t know very much about the day-to-day responsibilities of patrol versus tactical police officers. I get the feeling that, as a sniper, Sergeant Truelove (I don’t know his first name, so I called him Dale in this fic) would probably be a tactical police officer. He wouldn’t have to go out on patrol or walk a beat. But let’s just say that he does or can… if circumstances require it. Honestly, I don’t have enough canon police officers to play with, so they’re going to be popping up wherever I need them.
> 
> When I started writing this fic series, I had no idea that the memory of Philip would become such a huge deal. At least, it’s huge to me: I’m a big advocate for people accepting the consequences (both good and bad) of their actions. I focus a lot on explaining motivations for actions, but I try really hard not to rationalize or justify why someone is either denied rewards or escapes punishment. (The fact that John faces zero consequences for killing Alexio Marros, a.k.a. the Bishop, in The Bends, has always bothered me, too. And I really hope it never comes back around to bite John on the ass.)
> 
> BUT! OK, so up until this point, I think John assumes that Philip contacted and befriended 494. John doesn’t know FOR SURE that 494 remembers Philip. Back in “A Light That Never Goes Out” (Chapter 3), Dorian mentions 494 sharing a memory of getting hugged by a little boy that he’d saved, but John doesn’t know if 494 made this comment before or after Dorian removed the android’s access to his past cases. (In fact, a case can be made for John not wanting to know, which was maybe why he’d changed the subject as fast as he had in that scene.) Now John gets the whole truth; he’d suspected it, but he hadn’t had any proof before now that Dorian had provided the catalyst for the Android Rights Movement. Heavy stuff.


	12. Monopoly

“I have one more announcement, people,” Captain Maldonado warned as everyone shifted and shuffled, anticipating the usual dismissal following roll call and daily assignments. TGIF and all that. But now all motion in the bullpen paused, and John cringed along with the rest, dreading the delivery of more pain-in-the-ass.

She put them out of their misery and into John’s: “I’m taking two weeks, starting Monday. Detective Kennex is holding the fort while I’m away.”

There were blinks of surprise. Plenty of them. And one sotto voce exclamation: “What--Kennex!? You gotta be kidding me.”

Paul. Such fucking tact. And he got on John’s case about manners.

The comment was quiet enough that, although everybody heard it, they could also choose to ignore it. Which was what the captain did and the rest of her staff followed her lead. Still, John was tempted to shoot back with something like, “Button up, Paul. Your envy is showing!”

But John had the sneaking suspicion that the captain would drag him into her office by his ear if he rose to the bait. So he didn’t. And when he didn’t, a new thought burbled to the surface: Paul was angling for John to say something about how Paul had cases to work, implying to the rest of the bullpen that Paul was competent. Hell, practically endorsing Paul’s abilities as a detective.

Oh, God. What utter hogwash. Good thing John had kept his mouth shut.

The day got increasingly more annoying; the captain directed more and more reports and alerts John’s way as she signed off on various logistics requests and personnel shuffling. A tactical team went out to support Val as she executed an arrest warrant and God damn it all to hell in a bicycle basket -- John would have given a year’s allowance of doughnuts to be out there in the thick of it. But nope, here he was. His ass in a seat because God forbid his chair wander off unattended.

So, Friday was bad. Made worse when John caught a whiff of gunpowder on Dorian’s jacket as he ushered his lover over the threshold to John’s apartment. “You took fire today,” John accused, hurt that Dorian hadn’t said anything, angry that Sandra hadn’t CC’ed him on the alert, and knee-deep in a pity party at just feeling left out _****again.****_

“No. No, John,” Dorian insisted when John opened his mouth to present exhibit A in his case. “We located a weapons cache bound for the Wall. Sergeant Truelove needed a mask to breathe through it, the air was so thick with black powder. But there were no suspects. No traps. We were fine. I was fine.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not,” John groused, tearing his coat off and swatting it onto a wall peg. “I’m losing my marbles at that damn desk. I can feel sanity trickling through my fingers.” He held out a hand, palm up and fingers curled loosely, to demonstrate. But of course his hand was empty. Because John was fresh out of sanity.

Dorian hummed. “Then maybe we should work on your dexterity.”

“My--what. You--hold up.” John quirked a brow. “Am I going to be the one wearing clothes this time?”

With a grin, Dorian replied, “That’s up to you.”

Once John found out what his fiancé had in mind, well, yeah. He opted for clothes. Not that there was anything wrong with playing guitar in the nude, but eh. He just wasn’t feeling it today.

They showered. John ate. Took more aspirin. Had a beer. And then they both made themselves comfortable on John’s straight-back chairs, guitars across their laps. It had been a long, long time and John’s hands only recalled a handful of melodies. Each time he blanked, Dorian readily supplied the next chord thanks to being plugged back in to the public network.

“No lights,” John mumbled as he tried to get his fingertips to hit between the right frets. The stretch made his hand hurt. God, he felt old. “Your processing lights are still shut off.”

“Do you miss them?”

 _ ** **Yes.****_ “Do you?”

“I’m not even aware of them. Normally.”

“Yeah? Well. They’re part of who you are. So it’s your call.” Ah, finally, the chord sounded right to John’s ears. He went back to the beginning of the stanza and this time made it all the way to the chorus. Dorian strummed along in harmony until John switched over and both of them were playing the same notes. John reached out and poked Dorian’s ankle, queuing him to take over the melody. Which he did. Pretty smoothly, too.

“We could take this act on the road,” John judged with a happy smile.

“Hah. That might be a viable option.”

A viable option? “Whoa -- I thought you were getting along with DT. Enjoying the job.” Even within the procedural limitations imposed on all newbie cops.

“We do and I am.” Dorian looked up. “The MX, man.”

Ah, the cop-block. John smirked. “Say no more.” Jumping back over to melody, he promised, “We’ll keep our employment options open.”

Employment options, yeah. Because if anybody ever strong-armed John into a captain’s office, he’d knock the walls down by lunch.

“You need a haircut,” Dorian observed Saturday evening.

They were lounging on the sofa. Dorian had picked the music. Some Led Zeppelin album that was interesting enough on the eardrum to keep John from nodding off. That third beer with a dinner of instant noodles had been a mistake. Carbs on top of carbs weighted his eyelids.

So John was feeling sleepy and mellow. Mellow enough, to tell Dorian, “Yup. Send me your recommendation.”

A moment later, John’s phone buzzed. He didn’t bother to check it until after he’d driven Dorian to work the next morning. Today was Sunday and John’s day off -- one last taste of freedom before he had to buckle down on Monday and put in his best effort at doing a spectacularly bad job _****without****_ getting anybody killed (Now _****that****_ was a challenge.) -- and the barber was his next stop.

“Stay safe, D,” he said before Dorian could hop out of the car.

“I’ll call you when I’m done for the day.”

“You’d better.”

The barber shop wasn’t far, but John wasn’t the first customer of the day. As he took a seat to wait his turn to be strangled by those damn body bibs, he flicked on his phone and took a gander at the photo Dorian had sent.

A mullet. A rainbow-dyed mullet.

That deserved a retort: _****Very funny.****_

_****\--I’d thought so. I’m glad you enjoyed it, too.** ** _

John rolled his eyes. _****I’m up next. Last chance.****_

His phone buzzed with an incoming photo. This one was neither a mullet nor a nod to unicorns. He showed it to the barber, who approved, and then John sat his ass in the swivel chair.

Twenty minutes of praying the laser-trimmer wouldn’t take off part of his ear and then he was finished.

It wasn’t even ten o’clock and John had the rest of the day. Wide open. He could do whatever he wanted… except he couldn’t really think of anything appealing. Hell, he couldn’t come up with anything that he used to do on his days off. Well, nothing Dorian would be thrilled to hear about: sitting around in shorts and a tank top, drinking whiskey and watching last week’s game while Dorian was out dodging bullets and trying not to punch DT’s MX in the face. It just didn’t square well.

John went to the gym. Looked in on a pilates class in between the treadmill and free weights. Dared to sign his name to the last morning session and, at about halfway through (as his pelvic muscles were aching and inner thighs burning), John decided this was something he could get some real world application out of.

“Well, John? Will we see you back here?” the instructor inquired as the regular students filed past.

“Probably as often as I can swing it.”

“Great! Until next time.”

And since the instructor didn’t congratulate John on defying his age by taking up the pursuit of core muscle strength and pelvic flexibility, John didn’t have to explain why it was necessary.

But he smirked all the way back to the cruiser because, yeah, it was pretty funny: _****“My fiancé fucks the life outta me in the most ungodly positions.”****_

Yeah, that would’ve gone over well. Very memorable.

* * *

John was on a roll today: a Dorian-endorsed haircut and a new exercise routine that Dorian would definitely approve of. So he hit a curry place for lunch that specialized in organic vegan cuisine and earned himself a hat trick.

And _****maybe****_ a little couch potato time with last night’s game.

But it just wasn’t the same without the whiskey and, as John was going to be picking Dorian up in something like three hours, that was a no-go. He pulled his personal tablet off of the coffee table and opened up the Internet browser. Did a couple of idle searches for things like “chenille socks” and “men’s cashmere sweater” and “fuzzy area rug” because where the lasagna and cannoli had failed, at least soft fabrics wouldn’t. And as he was considering what kind of rug Dorian would like for his new place, another thought occurred to John.

He did a quick search and just about dropped the tablet on the floor.

“Oh. My God!” The tablet didn’t cringe away from his shout, so John shook it hard before tossing it onto the next cushion. It skipped, slid, and bumped against the far arm of the sofa, but John was already scooping up his phone. Dialing.

“Hello?”

“Rudy!” John barked. “Oh, my God. Rudy, do you have a minute?”

“What? Yes! What is it? Is it Dorian? Is he all right?”

“Yes--no--I don’t know. He’s on duty right now, God damn it. No, I’m calling because--the price of DRN chargers--tell me I didn’t see that many zeroes. They can’t be serious!”

“Oh,” Rudy exhaled, drawing the sound out like he was sketching the leaning Tower of Pisa. “Yes. I’m afraid that is the going rate for a used -- possibly refurbished -- DRN charger.”

John shook his head, at an utter loss for words. The asking price of not one but three different tech companies was in the ballpark of John’s annual salary… _****doubled.**** _ “There’s no way--” The words gusted out of him on a rush of breath. He was panicking. He had to stop. _****Get a grip, Kennex!**** _ He had to--

“John. It’s all right. Dorian will be all right. Are you listening to me?”

“If you say something that makes sense, yeah.”

“Good. Well, listen to this: I purchased a pair of chargers a few months back. When companies couldn’t get rid of their DRNs fast enough. I’ve offered one to Dorian at cost.”

“How much?”

The figure Rudy quoted was much, much closer to what John had figured. It would still put a large dent in his savings, but it was doable. He sucked in a deep breath.

Rudy added, “I told Dorian he could have it whenever he was ready for it. Pay me back in installments that work for him.”

“He didn’t tell me. He knew about this and he didn’t tell me.” Unbelievable.

Rudy had a strong sense of self-preservation. That was why he didn’t point out that John had nearly hyperventilated when he’d found out. Instead, he guardedly admitted, “There’s more.”

Of course there was. “What.”

“Every tech company that’s offering these chargers -- I looked into them. They’re all either relatively new start-ups or companies that have been dormant for over a year.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So I suspect someone’s bought them up.”

Right. Duh. If John had been thinking straight, he would have figured that out for himself. “And then that someone hiding behind those companies bought all the old chargers when everyone was in a hurry to wash their hands of DRNs. It’s a monopoly.” A barely-legal monopoly… unless someone proved that the tech distributors were intentionally driving up the price… or all owned by the same parent company.

Or congressman. Congressmen.

“John? John!”

“Little busy seeing red right now, Rudy.”

“Right, I know the feeling. From experience. But there’s hope on the horizon. We’ll get this sorted John, before many more DRNs are walking the city streets.”

“Sort it -- _****how?”****_

“Well, the ink’s not dry on anything yet, but I figure it’s time for me to go into business. For myself. Dabble a bit in the DRN market. The excitement of fixing other people’s androids loses its thrill after a decade or two.”

John chuckled, overwhelmed with relief. “I’ll bet it does. Dorian know about this?”

“Yes. In fact, he was the one who offered to make the introduction to my business partner.”

“Oh?” John rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And who might that be. Anyone I know?”

“Yes, actually. Jake Bellman.”

John’s head thumped against the back of the sofa, arm flopping along the back. He blinked up at the ceiling and processed that before settling on: “Tell me that’s not awkward what with you stealing away Valerie Stahl.”

Rudy snorted. “We’re all adults here, John. Well, most of us. Clearly, you’ve remembered yourself.”

Yeah, John’s little dig had been pretty juvenile. He didn’t apologize for it, though, thereby further reassuring Rudy that John was in full possession of his wits. “Yeah, yeah. Great. Good talk. Oh, and Rudy,” John rushed to add before the man could hang up, “thank you.”

There was a pause, silence on the other end of the line, and John wondered if he’d missed his window.

But then a quiet sniff made its way through John’s phone. “Both you and Dorian are most welcome.”

John hung up, lowered his phone, and smiled. Out of all the good to come out of this day, this was the best: John wasn’t the only one playing offense on Dorian’s team. Hell, Dorian had _****a team.****_ Which meant they were still in the running. This sick scheme to starve DRNs into deactivation wasn’t going to be the winning goal and it wasn’t game over. Not by a long shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so here we go! The first suspicious anti-DRN event. (Took long enough, ey?) The bad guys have been hard at work in the background.
> 
> The fact that John kept a medallion in the cruiser (during the TV show) made me think that the car was on loan to him personally by the department. For whatever reason. So I never bothered to give John a personal vehicle.


	13. Work Harder

Dorian paused, gait hitching, at the sight of John bracing an arm on the roof of the cruiser.

“What?” John asked, like he didn’t know why Dorian was gawping at him. Scanning him. Committing this look to password-protected memory. Or so his ego crowed. He was sporting a new haircut, a white-on-black pin-striped dress shirt, and a pair of soft jeans he hadn’t worn since his rookie days.

“Who the hell are you?” Dorian demanded. But he didn’t reach for his sidearm so John was pretty (mostly) sure that Dorian was just joking around.

“Who do you think? Am I giving you a ride or what?”

“No, sorry. I’m waiting for a guy with the worst haircut ever.”

“The worst, huh? What’s his number? Let’s give him a call.” John pulled out his cell phone, calling Dorian’s bluff.

“I can’t believe you actually did it.”

“You can’t believe I’d make you come up with something else to complain about. Really? That’s all it takes to surprise you?”

Dorian grinned into the cruiser. John joined him. Started the engine. Drove back to his place, but rather than unlock the front door, John steered Dorian toward the small, tiled porch at lakeside. He leaned against the low wall and gestured Dorian in close until the android was leaning against John, his hip between John’s spread thighs and one arm looped over John’s shoulders.

“We gotta talk,” John murmured just louder than the soft lapping of the water. Stars and planets twinkled overhead. He could spot Mars. “About DRN chargers.”

Dorian nodded. “Yeah. The prices are crazy right now, man. But Rudy’s going to come through for us.”

“You didn’t tell me,” John didn’t accuse because, after a solid day of self-improvement, he wanted to discuss this, not fight about it.

“Rudy stores a charger here that I can use.” What a carefully truthful reply. “I haven’t heard that more DRNs are rotating back to the city.”

“They will, though.”

Dorian petted John’s new haircut. He hadn’t used any gel -- didn’t have to with this particular style -- so there was no resistance at all for the DRN’s fingers to encounter. “It’ll be an issue then.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Honestly, I wanted to see what Rudy would come up with first.”

OK. Fair enough. John exhaled, rubbed Dorian’s lower back through the durable cotton of his uniform.

“When did you find out?” Dorian asked just as quietly.

“This afternoon.” John could practically hear Dorian thinking that through.

“You didn’t call me.”

“I called Rudy.” Drawing in a deep breath, John said, “I’m sorry. I should have thought to call you first. It should have been you. You should be my number one.”

John wasn’t sorry that he’d spared Dorian all that emoting. In fact, had John called Dorian, Dorian probably would have just directed him to Rudy. And, worse case scenario, John’s call would have distracted Dorian in the middle of a tricky situation. Just because Dorian was an android didn’t mean his ability to multitask wouldn’t max out.

But. Dorian should have been first on John’s speed dial. His first instinct. After all the bullshit of the past four months, how could he not be?

Leaning back, Dorian studied John in the darkness. John could only just make out his lover’s silhouette. “What does that mean -- this makes us even?”

“No, D.” John confessed with brutal honesty, “This makes us work harder.”

“Work harder? Is that why you got all cleaned up tonight?”

John’s lips slid into a grin. “Yeah. Part of it. You deserve my best.”

Dorian tickled John’s scalp, scritching his fingertips against the follicles. “So do you.” It wasn’t an empty statement. It was an acknowledgment. John waited because as sure as stars in the night sky there was more. “I heard you’ll be taking over for Captain Maldonado from tomorrow.”

“Yeah. For two weeks.”

“When did you know?”

“Well, I’ve been denying it since Wednesday.”

Dorian hummed. “She encouraged me to talk to you about my current assignment.”

Now it was John who leaned back. “What’s up?”

“It’d be better if I showed you.”

John didn’t move. He stayed wrapped around and wrapped up in Dorian. Just for one more second. Two. Three. And then: “OK, D. Show me.”

He let Dorian guide him inside and sit him down at the comms setup. With a tap of the activation button, he brought the unit online and then pressed a finger to a data sensor spot. John frowned as a holographic map of the district glowed on the screen.

“Sergeant Truelove and I, we’ve been directed to investigate these routes.”

“Routes,” John echoed because that made no sense. Patrol officers were assigned a beat. A regular beat to walk or drive every shift. They didn’t have routes, plural. Except that was exactly what Dorian and DT had been given. “Thursday,” Dorian said, and a twisting loop along city streets glowed in red. “Friday--” Yellow this time. “Saturday--” Green. “And today.” Blue.

John leaned closer, squinting at the street names because these couldn’t be the neighborhoods he thought they were. Areas he’d just been reading about in various reports going back several weeks. But they were.

“D, no. These neighborhoods are shielded.” Illegally shielded. Somehow, the residents had figured out how to block MX scans and turn drone video footage into useless static. Not all the time, of course. That would have called for a full-on assault. But often enough to make the department suspect suspicious activity. Gangs or black market or something else that practically screamed armed assailants and serious fucking risk.

Dorian argued calmly, “It’s an assignment I’m uniquely qualified for.”

Damn it, yeah. He was. Where MXs failed, a DRN might net results. John couldn’t even get mad at Maldonado over it. Not only was she officially on vacation now, but she was doing what she could to demonstrate to her bosses that DRNs would be a beneficial addition to the force.

“Why now?” John asked, flicking his fingers at the projection. “I’d have found out about it tomorrow.”

Dorian tucked his chin down. “Captain Maldonado asked me how I’d want you to learn about it, and I’d rather it come from me.” A hand glided over John’s shoulder. “I would’ve told you sooner. If I could have. No--” Dorian objected, paused, and corrected himself: “I could have. I’m an employee, not property. The information isn’t classified beyond your clearance level. I could have told you sooner. I chose not to.”

John prompted, “Because…?”

“I’m not sure.”

Just like John wasn’t sure why he hadn’t picked up his phone with the intent to call Dorian about the chargers. Was John still so locked up inside his own loneliness and self-sufficiency? Or had he honestly assumed that Dorian would be unable to contribute anything? Like back when he’d been hijacked by Vaughn’s memories and had argued for going to Maldonado. For deactivation.

John blew out a long breath. Yeah, OK. That scenario was still the stuff of his nightmares. And Dorian was still an android, sure, but he was also a person and John was baffled as to why he’d suddenly excluded him.

Well, whatever the reason, be it stubborn habit or flat-lined fear, John was going to do his damnedest to make sure it didn’t happen again.

“OK. You and I -- we’re not perfect, but we can work with this.”

“You’re not angry.” It was an observation and, hell, Dorian sounded a little shocked.

“I was. I am.” John glared at the map, then dropped his head low, shoulders hunched, and angled his gaze toward Dorian. “I don’t want to be mad at you.”

Yes, he wanted to be mad about Dorian’s assignment, which was really just one pothole tumble into Hell. This deserved his anger, but anger wouldn’t change a damn thing. Yes, it was dangerous, but Dale Truelove was one of the best. Steady as the sunrise and a sniper of damn impressive skill. If this operation was going forward under the guise of a hum-drum foot patrol, there were no better men for the job than Dorian and DT.

Still, John offered, “I can authorize backup for you guys. Starting tomorrow.”

As Dorian considered that, John reached out and rubbed his palm over the DRN’s hip. “No,” he finally decided, curving a hand around the nape of John’s neck. “Thank you, but no. We’ll be fine.”

“Just--take care of yourself, too, D.” Because John was well aware that that was the other real danger: if Dorian had to make a choice between his own life or his human partner’s, John knew there would be no choice at all. Not that it wasn’t the same for a lot of human cops, too... which wasn’t particularly reassuring.

But it was an issue they were both aware of and the last thing John wanted was to backslide into an argument that would go nowhere fast. Not when he was just getting into the mindset of taking care of himself for the benefit and happiness of his partner.

Dorian plucked playfully at the neat locks of just-trimmed hair. “Is that what this is? You finally taking care of yourself?”

“Maybe. Yeah. Yes.” John said it out loud: “We gotta take care of each other and ourselves. This -- us -- deserves every chance to last. Really last.” For as much time as they had.

“I agree. Wholeheartedly.”

Well. OK, then. That was progress, and progress was good. Time to quit while they were both ahead.

“So--” John cleared his throat and flicked off the projector. “What do you want to do tonight? You pick.”

“You gotta eat?”

“Nah. Took care of that already.”

“OK. Can I drive?”

Chuckling, John passed him the cruiser keys.

They ended up in Morris Park. The same place where they’d saved Jeannie Hartman with a lot of determination and some solid teamwork. Rudy had even coached Dorian through it remotely. So, yeah, John was sensing some parallels here. He asked anyway because sometimes Dorian surprised him, too. OK, OK -- lots of times.

“Why here?”

“You’re not the type for a romantic, nighttime stroll?”

John reached over and scrubbed his palm over Dorian’s hair. “Wise ass.”

“Couldn’t resist.”

John, either. That was why they got each other.

After a few lazy strides, Dorian sighed and pointed toward the gazebo over yonder. “Our first hug. Happened right over there.”

“Yup. You popped my back in five places.”

“Did not.”

“Dude, you didn’t know your own strength from a punch in the mouth.”

A bashful grin flashed in the distant streetlamps. “You enjoyed that, huh?”

John had. But Detective Paul? Not so much.

“If you had a Greatest Hits, it’d make the cut.”

Dorian shook his head. “Your puns, man…”

“Are awesome.” He slapped Dorian’s lower back. Like they were teammates joshing around in the locker room.

This time, it was John who sighed.

“It’s not always going to be this way,” Dorian assured him with uncanny accuracy.

“Right,” John concurred. Time passed. Things changed. Case in point: androids now had their foot in the door of inalienable rights. Just another threshold to cross. Happened all the time.

In a word: entropy.

Yeah, civilization was built on pure ideals. Neat, orderly, pristine, logical. But the most vital part was the people, who mingled and meshed in the most outrageous ways, messing everything up.

John could hardly wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have no idea if Mars would be visible in the evening sky in April, 2049. Maybe? But like, don’t take it on faith because I don’t know what I’m talking about here. And Google was NOT helpful.


	14. Dorian's Gallery

The alarm went off. John smacked it into silence and then mashed as much of himself into the mattress and pillows as he could manage. It was not Monday. It was not. Never gonna be again. John had crowned himself king of the universe and erased it from the calendar for all time.

A hand on his shoulder. It curled, tugged, and pressed. John grumbled as Dorian rolled him over onto his back and then a steaming cup of coffee filled John’s vision. “Good morning, sexy,” he rasped, reaching for the mug.

“You said no pet names,” Dorian reminded him.

“I was talking to the coffee.” He took a sip and groaned.

“I think I might be jealous.”

John’s brain woke up before his better sense. He looked Dorian up and down, admiring him in his uniform. “Well. You may not be 165 degrees, but you’re hot enough for me.”

Dorian crumpled forward on helpless hiccups of laughter and John ran his free hand over the DRN’s shoulder and down his arm. He took another noisy sip as he waited for Dorian to calm down and deliver a comeback.

When Dorian did straighten up, he went right for John, pressing a kiss to the center of his brow. “You sure know how to rev my engine.”

John chortled.

“But it’s yours that needs to put the pedal to the metal.” Dorian straightened up and headed for the kitchen. “Or we’re going to be late, spark plug.”

John choked on his victory sip. Coughed and sputtered. “Wait--what did you just call me!”

“I’m sorry, what was that, firecracker?”

“I’ll fire your--damn it,” John hissed, tossing the bed covers aside just as he heard the sound of the toaster starting up. Dorian marched back into the room, collected John’s prosthetic leg from its charger and passed it over. “No pet names, D.”

“Whatever you say, cowboy.”

“Oh, my God. Stop. Stop it.”

A soft click and whoosh from the kitchen. “Your toast. And if you make me late today, that’s exactly what I’ll be: toast.”

 _ ** **“My****_ toast,” John insisted wickedly.

“Yes, John. You can nibble my corners when we get home tonight.”

“Promises, promises.”

But a promise was a promise, and John clung to that through each agonizing irritant that poked and stung at his fraying patience. And he hadn’t even made it through the first day. Yet.

John made the mistake of electing to skip lunch so that he could dive deeper into Dorian’s assignment, upending every virtual garbage can and turning over every digital rock he could get his terminal to stumble upon. By the end of the day, John was feeling like he was patrolling vicariously.

Which was so stupid for so many reasons.

But he signed everything that needed approval and glared at the suspects brought in to the interrogation cubes and tried not to be too obvious about envying the active detectives for their tangible progress on open cases.

At least he didn’t have to deal with reports from Morris. John had happily delegated the task of those daily check-ins to Paul. He wished he could delegate the digitized paperwork, too. Or at least send it on to Sandra as an attachment to his daily summary of All The Things Everybody But John Did Today.

“Do not,” John warned Dorian at the end of shift, “ask me about my day.”

“Shall I tell you a bedtime story, instead?”

“Oh, really? Does it start with ‘once upon a time there was a terrible monster known throughout the land as Maldonado’?”

“No. It begins with ‘just around the corner there lived a troll with an insatiable appetite for doughnuts.’” Dorian leaned over the cruiser console and brushed at the front of John’s sweater. “Just how many of those things did you eat today, man?”

Not as many as he was going to eat tomorrow, that was for damn sure.

Tuesday -- Day Two of John’s two weeks in Hell. Dorian had the day off and made John swear he wouldn’t let the scowl become permanently stuck on his face.

“Don’t make me wake up to this every morning for the rest of my life.”

“Oh. Is that all? You don’t ask for much.” Which was quite true. Dorian had declared his intent to start moving in to his apartment today and he hadn’t asked John for a single thing. Not even a plea to borrow the cruiser.

“I’ll have help,” Dorian had revealed when John had delivered a jibe about Dorian doing everything by himself. On foot. Uphill both ways.

“Yeah? Who?”

“Maya Vaughn.”

John had just about swallowed his own tongue snorfling. “Yeah, yeah. Sure. And she’s bringing a higher power to do the heavy lifting. Good call, D.”

Dorian had swatted him with an oven mitt. “Just for that, you’re not allowed to stop by and check out my progress until after seven p.m.”

Androids were cruel. Indisputable fact right there.

“John,” Dorian said as he walked him to the door and pressed his travel mug -- filled to the brim with hot coffee -- into John’s hand. “Don’t forget--”

“You won’t let me.”

“No scowling. No more than three cups of coffee--”

“It’s hilarious that you think that’s even an option.”

“And no showing up at my building before seven.”

“Yeah? Well, no slinking around dangerous neighborhoods and dark alleys on your day off.”

“Deal.”

Deal. It didn’t feel like a deal. It felt like John was paying for the sins of humanity. _****Oh, Saint Michael, lend me strength.****_

John fought his way free of the bullpen at six forty-five and was slowly hauling his bureaucracy-battered self up to the second floor landing of Mrs. Fisk’s building at two minutes to seven. He may have used the cruiser lights on his way here. For a portion of the drive. Most of the drive. Pretty much all of the drive.

But the day was done and so was the drive and Dorian was just up ahead on the other side of Apartment 202. John shifted the housewarming gift he’d picked up, holding it behind his back as he knocked.

The door opened while his fist was still hanging in mid-air and finally John could have his reward for not hiding in the break room cabinets all day: Dorian smiled.

“Your watch is fast.”

“Better it than me.”

Dorian gestured him inside and John glimpsed vibrant colors where bare walls had been. Before he got too distracted, he whipped out Dorian’s gift. “For your new home. I hope you like it.”

“John. You could’ve waited until the official party.”

“Nah. There are special rules for boyfriends and fiancés.”

Shuffling into the froth of recycled tissue paper, Dorian pulled a plain white box from the reused gift bag.

“Don’t scan it before you open it,” John scolded lightly.

Maybe Dorian indulged him. Maybe he didn’t. But the delight was all real when he lifted out a personal hologram projector. It was battery-powered, but also rechargeable, cable included. Expedited shipping had cost almost as much as the gizmo itself.

“There’s a menu of pre-programmed images, “John explained, tone soft in the wake of Dorian’s awe. “A night sky and a redwood forest and a beach at sunset. Stuff like that. But you can add your own, too. Data port on the side there.”

Dorian continued holding the device in his hand, just staring at it.

And now John was beginning to question his choice in gift. He’d wanted to give Dorian something for his new rooms, so that had left the socks and sweater out of the running. But he’d also wanted to give him something that Dorian could personalize himself -- nix on the rug, then. In the end, he’d realized that what he most wanted to give Dorian was something that encouraged him to take advantage of his liberties, something that showed him that it was OK to express himself in ways he never would have dared before. At least while not operating on a low charge.

“D? Is it OK?”

The empty box, crinkled bag, and tissue paper smacked and bounced on the wood floor and then John was being glomped. Enthusiastically.

“It’s wonderful,” Dorian breathed against his ear. “Thank you, John.”

John rubbed his back and finally let himself take a closer look at the walls in the living room. There was no furniture to block his view of the ingenious contraption that Dorian had come up with in answer to the rule of “no nails in the wall.”

Seasoned lumber -- two-by-fours -- stood at regular intervals from the floor at a height of just over John’s 6’1”. They were held upright and braced apart by simple tension rods. From those tension rods, Dorian had hung lightweight, wire panels. Upon those, neatly clipped in place, were photos.

So many photos.

“What’s all this?” John asked, nodding against Dorian’s jaw and the android took half a step to the side, his arm still around John, and explained, “It’s my gallery. Do you like it?”

John huffed. Did he like it. What a question. But as John took a gander at the opposite wall, he realized that this wasn’t supposed to be a photo album. It was a history.

Sure, there were photos of good times. Right in the center, hogging the spotlight was a close-up of their sandcastle. Just the sandcastle. The builders were beyond the edges of the photo celo. Safely anonymous. John smiled at the memory.

But next to it was a coil of glowing cable and John was reminded of that terrible moment when he had found Dorian at the repo storage unit.

There was a very tight shot of slats of wood with the letters “DRN” stamped on it (the crates of Vaughn’s second fleet) and clipped beside it was a stock image of a bouquet of flowers. Not unlike the ones he’d asked Jeannie Hartman to deliver to the pediatrics wing of Saint Mary’s -- did Dorian still think John was generous?

An image of crumpled wrapping paper: John was viscerally reminded of his prosthetic leg and the moment Dorian had presented it to him.

Neon signs at night that screamed the Koln District and the view from the motel room where John had refused to give up on Dorian.

Scattered playing cards on a tabletop.

A window seat filled with house plants. They’d busted their way into Sandra’s house last December through a similar obstacle.

A slice of cheese-and-olive pizza with a jar of crushed red pepper seeds beside it. On standby.

A steel camping cup of coffee and John had to smile at that.

There was a naval orange, bringing to mind the time Dorian had taken that guided bullet for Kira Larsen. (If John remembered correctly, then one of those orangey food vendors had been in the plaza. And he hoped Dorian would think twice before stepping in front of the next bullet to go whizzing past.)

An image of a fedora (possibly a twin to Rudy’s) was pinned above photographed bits from an MX field repair kit. And then a snapshot of a corner of drywall with a patch job. A two-dimensional version of a rusty drain set into an aged concrete floor, and right here John needed a moment because oh God was he tempted to argue. Yes, he’d made sacrifices for the sake of keeping Dorian alive. He’d given up hot showers… among other things, but still. That didn’t make him a saint and if this image was on Dorian’s wall, then Dorian should also see how selfish John had been because John hadn’t asked for Dorian’s input. He’d made the choice for him.

Maybe the photo to the left of that explained why. It was a simple text: 110%

John had to smile because it was true: Dorian really had ruined John for any other DRN. Or any other partner for that matter.

“I still have to get frames,” Dorian murmured as John’s gaze continued to rove and catalog each abstract image and speculate on which related experience Dorian didn’t want to forget.

“It looks good like this, though. Raw,” John assured him, voice a little gruff.

Dorian rubbed John’s shoulder. “Maya let me use her membership card at the printer’s. Otherwise these would have put me over budget in a big way.”

“Where’d you go for the lumber?”

“Oh. Michael Costa still works on a home repair crew a couple of days a week. He said they were going to throw these out.”

“The rods, panels, and wire?”

“The panels are from Mid City Floral. Jeannie told me they kept the old shop displays when they remodeled a few years ago. The tension rods and wire and clips we picked up at one of those 10-bit stores.”

The ones that were packed full of cheap items sold in bulk for daily use. Once upon a time, they’d been called dollar stores. Back when people had still used paper money.

“It’s incredible, D.” John pressed a quick kiss to Dorian’s cheek.

“Come on.” He reached for John’s hand and interlaced their fingers, tugging John toward the closed bedroom door, beyond which was nothing but a charger, a bare window, and empty walls. John watched as Dorian set up the projector and selected an option from the image menu. “Get the light?”

John swiped a hand over the light switch. The overhead bulb winked out and the Milky Way splashed across the ceiling. Outshining the quiet neighborhood beyond the window panes. “Wow,” John approved. He stepped up behind Dorian and settled his hands on the DRN’s waist. “I’ve got good taste in housewarming gifts, eh?”

Dorian heckled him back. “You continue to surprise me.”

So long as they were good surprises John wouldn’t complain.


	15. Disco Lights

With the exception of a table and chairs, Dorian was pretty much set up for guests. Human ones, anyway. There was coffee and tea in the kitchen. Bottled water. A kettle. John spied a coffee and tea press like the one in Jake Bellman’s kitchen and felt a tiny thrill that Dorian might have noticed how much John had enjoyed the final result.

He glanced over cups and saucers in the cabinet and spoons, forks, knives and chopsticks in the drawer. He found a cutting board. Sugar. Napkins.

“Is there anything I can help you find, John?” Dorian teased as John continued investigating every nook and cranny.

“Hey. Gotta know what you got. Otherwise I can’t tell Val and Rudy and all them what to get for you when you have them over for that housewarming party, right?”

Hand towels were hanging in both the kitchenette and bathroom. Dorian’s future human guests were all set on toilet paper and hand soap. John rolled his eyes at the aspirin tucked into the ancient medicine cabinet and the first aid kit sitting in the corner. Dorian had one of those long-handled wiper deals for cleaning wood floors. Both of his wastebaskets looked like they might have started out as undrained flower pots but hey, even he still remembered the reduce-reuse-recycle chant from grade school. John found garbage bags under the kitchen sink next to porcelain cleaner and scrub brushes and rubber gloves.

“Did I forget anything?”

John snorted. “Yeah. You forgot to offer your guest something to drink. Some host you are.”

“I need practice.”

“Yeah, OK. We’ll get you some practice, then.” John angled in and looped his arms around his lover’s waist. “Looks like you had a good day.”

“It would have been better with you. But I wanted to surprise you.”

“Color me surprised.” It was things like this -- demonstrations of Dorian’s ingenuity -- that soothed John’s doubts. Those dark whispers that made him wonder if Dorian would fight for his own survival even if he could. If his programming allowed for it. And there was really no way to know for sure if it did until Dorian was put in a life-or-death situation. The uncertainty dug away at him. Not exactly pleasant. But seeing all the effort Dorian had gone to for his own sake. For self-expression and comfort and selfishness. This was doing wonders for John, taking the edge off a lot.

John suggested, “Maybe I could give you a hand next time?”

“Yeah, man. You can help me get secondhand furniture up those stairs.”

“Yippee.” It would be a pain in the ass. And back. And shoulders. But John didn’t renege. “You staying here tonight?”

“I’d rather not.”

John waited.

“Could I come home with you?”

“Don’t ask me, Dorian. Tell me.”

“I’m coming home with you.”

John rewarded him with a soft kiss. “Great. You ready to go, then?”

Dorian nodded and John opened the front door. Shut off the light. The bedroom beyond was dark; Dorian had turned off the projector to save battery life. An indication that he wasn’t planning to charge here tonight, but John didn’t want to get in the habit of assuming. And besides, he’d wanted to hear Dorian say it out loud.

“I think this will be a night for surprises,” Dorian mused as he drove them both back to the lakeside apartment.

John slouched in the passenger seat, grimacing at his phone. With Sandra away, he was the go-to guy and way too many people were going to him for the dumbest shit. He briefly entertained the notion of sending around a memo: _****Take some Goddamned initiative, people.****_

That would be fun to explain at his next service review.

“Surprises, huh?” John answered absently as he texted back a quick approval: _****Yes, arrest the son of a bitch. Have your MX hold your hand while you’re at it.****_

John made himself delete the fun parts before he sent it.

“Well,” Dorian amended, “one more.”

“One more.”

“I’ve been saving it. Special.”

John hated that smile. Loved it, too. “Just so you could make me wonder. All the way home.” He glanced over at the gauges on the dashboard and made a disgusted noise. “You’re not even driving the speed limit.”

“The posted speed limit isn’t a minimum, John. It’s a recommend maximum.”

“Yeah, well, I recommend you give it a try. Or are you afraid you might like it?” he jeered, jabbing Dorian in the arm and twisting his fist back and forth -- drilling it in -- just to be annoying.

“You are so annoying.”

Mission: complete. John kept his hands to himself for the rest of the drive and savored his victory.

* * *

“So, what’s the surprise?”

Dorian closed the front door behind them. “Couldn’t even wait for me to cross the threshold,” he despaired, shaking his head in mock disappointment.

“Yeah, you love how eager I am. Admit it.”

“Kiss me first.”

Like that was a concession. It was just as much for John as it was for Dorian. Gladly feathering his hands against the DRN’s cheeks, John guided himself in close and brushed their lips together. Once. Twice. In the darkness behind closed eyes, John focused on touch alone and shuddered when Dorian opened up to him, asking for more.

And John gave. He gave, and he gave _****in****_ on a soft grunt of yes oh my God yes. This was what his day had been missing.

A hand in John’s hair nudged his head to tilt to a new angle and John went with it, pressed blindly in and crowded against synthetic skin and strength. God, he loved how strong Dorian was.

“Hmm,” Dorian exhaled. “Are you watching us, John?”

John dived for a lusty kiss, tonguing past his lover’s lips and, tempted, he let his eyelids lift. Just a bit. Just so he could get some blurry input on Dorian’s expression--

Which was glowing. Glowing blue. John reared back, gaping at the trickle and zip of processor lights beneath Dorian’s skin. “You’ve got it back.” He smiled and he could _****feel****_ the lights reflecting in his eyes. “When did this happen? Today?”

Dorian nodded. “When Rudy brought the charger by my place, he followed through on an update I’d asked for.” Just as John stated tracing a new pattern, it vanished. The lights went out. John’s brows twitched in question, but before that question even gained words, the processing lights started up again. Their light flickered in the bay windows. Dorian explained, “I control it now. Off or on.”

“Brilliant,” John declared because it was. “What’s the verdict on clothes tonight? Off or on?”

“Off. Very off.”

All the better for appreciating Dorian’s light show in the darkened apartment. Which John did. Very much. It was fascinating how Dorian’s circuits responded to feather-light touches. The same ones that had fully wrecked him that evening on the sofa. The result was even more breathtaking now.

John gasped as blue and silver lights pulsed all over Dorian, sweeping, shining, and glowing as he climaxed and John forgot his own need. It was mesmerizing. He chased after those fleeting lights with his fingertips until Dorian captured his hand on a laugh.

“Shiny and sparkly does it for you, John.”

He couldn’t really deny it. “You’re talking to a guy who had his own trophy room once upon a time. I like seeing confirmation of my accomplishments.”

Dorian tilted his chin back and looked up at him. “I’m an accomplishment?”

Uh oh. Bad choice of words. But like hell he was backpedaling in bed. “Tell me you don’t feel proud of yourself every time this works,” he insisted, gesturing between the two of them.

John let himself be caged on the bed as Dorian leaned over him. “If you expect failure, you’ll never attain success.”

“I brace myself,” John corrected, rubbing along Dorian’s bare arms. “It’s kind of an instinct at this point.”

“Yeah? Well then, you might want to hold on, John.” That was all the warning John got before Dorian’s hands and lips descended on him and, oh. Hell yeah. Hell yeah, he held on. To Dorian.

They were almost late for work the next morning because John had been too enthralled with the disco lights flashing across Dorian’s temple and cheek to drink his coffee. And then he’d insisted on a kiss before heading out the door. A long kiss.

“Take care, D,” John told him as he parked the cruiser at the precinct.

“Of course. Try to lay off the coffee and doughnuts for a change?”

Asshole. “In exchange for what?”

Dorian smirked and a single streak of white light shot across his cheek. Like a falling star. “I’ve just sent an incentive to your phone. Have a good day, John.”

An incentive. Damn it. John wanted to check. Really bad. But no. No, actually knowing what it was and not being able to have it right this instant would be more torture than willful ignorance. He kept his phone in his pocket, squared his shoulders, and marched into the bullpen. It was time for roll call.


	16. Collapse

The call came in at 2:10 p.m.

John was trapped in a meeting, supervising an inquiry into whether or not protocol had been followed during a recent arrest. The biggest insult was that John wasn’t present so that he could contribute; this was a case that the captain had labeled priority so here John was, acting as her eyes and ears and being bored out of his caffeine-deprived mind… until his phone buzzed.

Yes, finally: a distraction. It took no small amount of skill and stealth technique to unobtrusively check messages in a room made up of reflective surfaces. And for the few seconds John needed in order to shrug his arm toward his pocket and slip the gadget free, he was marginally entertained.

But then his gaze locked onto Dorian’s badge number, right there on the screen, followed by successive updates from dispatch:

_****10-00** ** _

Ten double zero: officer down.

_****10-33** ** _

Ten thirty-three: emergency.

_****15** ** ** **th** ** **** & Welburn--** ** _

John held up a hand to halt the inquiry proceedings, and maybe they did halt. Either way, he didn’t notice. The phone in John’s hand was the center of his universe, his every thought revolving around the fact that Dorian and DT were supposed to be evaluating Welburn Avenue today.

He shot out of his chair and lunged for the conference room door.

A new message flashed on the screen: dispatch was already responding, promising immediate back up. Somebody was in the vicinity. Would be there in under five minutes. It would take John at least ten to get there even with the lights and sirens, but he didn’t slow down, barreling out of the building and launching himself in the direction of the cruiser.

“Detective Kennex!”

He dimly registered the inflectionless voice of an MX and quick, precise footfalls as he wrenched open the car door.

“Sir! I have been instructed to accompany you!”

“Then get in!” he bellowed, beyond the point of arguing or even caring who had sent the thing out after him. The engine came to life with a roar and the tires squealed as John yanked the wheel toward the exit.

“Detective Kennex,” the MX said from Dorian’s seat, “may I assist you with your seat belt?”

“No. You can tell me who’s responding to the 10-00 at 15th and Welburn.” John juggled both steering wheel and seat belt just fine without a nanny, thank you very Goddamn much.

“Officer Gorson is less than a kilometer out.”

“Good. Access drone footage. Tell me about the emergency. Shots fired?”

“No reports of shots fired. Incomplete drone data indicates structural instability. The roof has collapsed.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit! “Access blueprints and city plans for that block. Standby to attempt rescue.”

“Understood.”

Yeah, that remained to be seen, but John focused on the road, swerving through traffic toward the site. Right turn, left turn. One obstacle after another. John would not think about what condition Dorian and DT were in. Dorian was fine. Dale Truelove was fine. They were both fine until John’s eyes told him otherwise.

Spying a police cruiser parked up ahead, John ordered, “Casualties update.”

“No casualties reported, but my scanners are impaired due to signal interference.”

John grunted out a four-letter word or two as he swung around the corner and stomped on the brake. He now had a full view of the building and--

“Holy Jesus.” There was dust and clumps of brick and mangled rebar. The place -- whatever it had been -- looked like it had imploded. John leaped out of the car, moving a fraction faster than the retracting seat belt and nearly garroting himself. “Gor-gorson!”

There was no answer so John thumbed through the most recent updates on his phone, his pulse skyrocketing as he read a request for an ambulance. 10-52. Shit. If DT needed medical attention, then what kind of shape was Dorian in? Dorian, Dorian, Dorian. Dorian, who was faster than a human and programmed to make the ultimate sacrifice if necessary.

_****Please, God. Don’t let it be necessary.** ** _

John ducked toward the other cruiser, but it was empty, so he spun toward the rubble. “Gorson! It’s Kennex! Where you at?”

A muffled holler answered, but it was too indistinct for John to make out the words. A second later, his phone buzzed. He was getting a call. Irritated, he glanced at the screen.

It was from Dorian. His Dorian. Directly. Not dispatch. “D! What’s the situation?”

“Stop yelling and calm down.”

“No, I will not, damn it. Where are you in this mess? Are you secure?”

“John, come around to the north.”

“Is that where you are?”

“Yes. Both Sergeant Truelove and I are in the loading bay. We’re pinned against the northeast wall.”

“Can the MXs bust you out or do we have to come though the slow way?”

“The slow way, I’m afraid. This--this wall is load-bearing at the--the--the moment.”

John frowned. He could hear sirens in the distance on approach, but he was more concerned with the weird way Dorian’s voice was skipping. Different from when he’d gotten his hand shredded by a barbed-wire-wrapped pipe. “D. What’s your damage, man?”

“Please hurry, John. Officer Gorson and his MX could use a hand.”

“OK, OK. Almost there. OK, I see the MX.” John thought to glance over his shoulder and, sure enough, his own MX unit was following along like a lost puppy. “What do you need us to do?” John asked Dorian, mostly to keep the DRN engaged. It was pretty obvious that Gorson and his MX were attempting to clear a tunnel.

“Detective Kennex,” the MX blurted. “I am unable to successfully scan the structure. Please wait here.”

“No. I’m going in.” He could see where Gorson had made a promising-looking hole in the wreckage. He put up a hand to shut the MX up. “Not far. If Dorian can get a reading on me, he can tell us more precisely where he and Sergeant Truelove are.”

John patted Elliot Gorson on the shoulder in thanks as he activated the mic near his jacket collar. He put the phone in his pocket and, with his earpiece tucked in place, John checked, “You still with me, D?”

“John, I did not ask you to come in here after us.”

“Yeah, well. Too bad.” He squirmed around a fallen beam. “How far in are you guys?”

“I’m not sure--sure--sure how to answer that. On the original blueprints, we’d be ten meters in from the north exits.”

“But?” John asked because there was always a “but.”

“The building has been altered significantly. There’s no documentation of these changes reg--reg--registered with city planning.”

John huffed. Then coughed on the dust. “Can you sense anyone moving around near your position?”

There was a slight pause and John scraped his way past a pile of mangled crates. Scanning the increasingly claustrophobic space with his penlight, John asked, “Anything yet?”

“I can hear you. Bear left if you can.”

“Copy that.” John investigated the first sizable pocket in the debris, but it looked pretty damn impassible. “How’s DT doing?”

“He’s breathing, but unconscious. There may be some head trauma.”

But Dorian couldn’t spare the energy for a scan. Oh, holy hell, his fiancé was in bad shape. As though the broken record effect wasn’t evidence enough. “Has he regained consciousness at all?”

“No, not since the roof caved in.”

“OK.” Ah-hah! This way, maybe. Maybe. John took a left and then had to step to the right to get around a hunk of concrete. “Do you think he can be moved?”

“Yes. But we’ll need a gurney.”

Right. Because head wounds were tricky. But not as tricky as back injuries. “So, pretty exciting time you guys had here,” John blathered as he wiggled under another slab of concrete only to find his way blocked. Biting back a snarl, he retreated. “Wanna tell me about it?”

“The usual. The MX reported loss of signal. We announced ourselves but no one was here. The door was unlocked. It was pretty much down--down--downhill from there.”

John found a way over what appeared to be a portion of the roof. “Yeah, I’ve had a few like that myself,” he grunted out as he pulled himself up. “Do you--”

“John, I’ve got you--you--you, man. You’re right above us.”

“OK. Let me get--set up--here--” His foot found a niche that supported his weight and John tested his balance before angling the light over the edge and down into the gloom. He saw Dorian first. His lover was pinned from the chest down beneath a crumbling mess of concrete and rebar. Beside him was Dale Truelove. Sprawled, but alive. He twitched away from John’s seeking beam. Dorian didn’t twitch. Couldn’t. Dorian was what was keeping the weight of the collapsed roof from crushing his partner.

“Where’s your MX?” John asked quietly. Technically, he didn’t need the comm anymore. Dorian could hear him just fine from this distance.

But Dorian needed it. The answer John got wasn’t out loud; it was limited to his earpiece: “Inoperable, I think. He may have take--take--taken the brunt of it.”

Right, so no help from that quarter. “Is there anything I can do for you guys while I’m here?” Because otherwise, John’s next job would be to lead the rescue team in along the route he’d discovered.

“No. Go back and bring help for Sergeant Truelove.”

“What about you?”

“Once he’s clear, I can--can--can break through this.”

But Dorian couldn’t do that as long as DT was in the way. The sergeant was one DRN away from being squashed. “OK,” John acknowledged. “OK. We can get a gurney through here--” It’d be tight, but John refused to think it wasn’t doable. “--just hold tight.”

There was another pause. One that John felt viscerally because, damn it all, there was so much he wanted to say. But they were using John’s phone. His police-monitored phone. So the words would have to wait.

“Heading back now,” John warned. “I’ll be waiting just outside.”

“I’ll be there--there--there as soon as I can.”

“Holding you to it, buddy.” And then John forced himself to turn around, slide back into the sharp-angled darkness, and retrace his steps. “Gorson,” John called into the mic, “we got search and rescue yet?”

“Suiting up now. Get your ass out here and tell ‘em what they’re heading into.”

John did. It was painstaking and every two minutes, he had to stop and check in: “D, you still tracking?”

“I’m here.”

It wasn’t much, but it kept John sane enough to be coherent. He supported the rescue team. He talked to Dorian. He pointed out how much better his own haircut was compared to Gorson’s.

“Maybe you could send him a recommendation,” John found the strength to tease. “Unless you’re willing to admit mine was beginner’s luck.”

It took almost two hours for Dale Truelove to be brought out. He went right into the waiting ambulance. Maybe Dorian heard the sirens because he said, “I’m coming out now, John.”

“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” Nope, John stood right where he was and listened to the muffled crack and clatter of breaking concrete. A breathless moment later, Dorian reported, “I’m free. Moving out now. Go ahead and call Sergeant Truelove’s next of kin.”

Keeping the line open between himself and Dorian, John did. Not the most pleasant of calls, but DT was alive and a cruiser was already on its way to pick his wife up and take her to the hospital.

Gorson clapped John on the shoulder. “I can’t believe you went in there. You’re insane, Kennex.”

“Yeah? And I’m only on my third day of covering for Maldonado.”

“God help you.”

“Amen.”

Less than a minute later, a form moved in the deepening shadows of twilight. Dorian emerged, shaky and dust-covered, from the rubble. John rushed in to give him a shoulder to lean on, counting up all the little cuts and scrapes that glass and concrete shards had gouged into synthetic skin. “You need to see Rudy,” John said, looping an arm around the android’s waist.

“I need to see the sergeant.”

“D, he’s got to be evaluated first. We’ve got time.” John dared to tease, “And besides, I already texted and told Rudy to expect you.”

“It’s his date night with Valerie.”

“We’ll make it up to them.”

There was no resistance as Dorian slid into the passenger seat of the cruiser. John’s MX was somewhere maintaining the perimeter or whatever. Gorson would deal with it. John had all he could deal with right here. Dorian was alive… despite someone’s best effort to kill him.


	17. More Questions

“This I can’t fix,” Rudy assessed tiredly. John looked up from his phone. He was on hold, waiting for the hospital staff to let him know Dale Truelove’s prognosis. If there even was a prognosis. Yet.

“Can’t fix what?” John barked, exhausted and furious and ready to knock down anything that got in his way.

“This,” the roboticist said, tapping Dorian’s shoulder. “Your endoskeleton is bent. You’d better compensate for an 8% reduction in overall stability. Minimum!”

John sighed.

“John,” Dorian said, “you can go home.”

“No. No, I can’t.” His next stop was the hospital. Then, he was headed back to Delta Division to sign off on all the shit that hadn’t been able to follow him out to the rescue site. Then, maybe, he could go home.

“Actually, you can go home, too,” Rudy declared, squinting at the monitor that was displaying various scans of Dorian’s inner workings from a multitude of angles. “Your linguistic control is back online now that your power reserves no longer have to reroute to augment your physical strength. And I don’t see anything that the nanobots won’t be able to handle. Well, other than your right clavicle. You’ll just have to live with it.”

John didn’t see how it was such a big deal. Rudy was acting like Dorian had one foot in the grave. “But he can, right? Live with it?” John checked.

“It’ll be _****much**** _more likely to warp further. And if it bends too far out of shape, the operation to repair it will be massively time-consuming and costly.”

“But you don’t recommend replacing it now?” John asked. “Considering it’s an injury sustained in the line of duty.” And thus on the department’s tab.

Rudy sighed into a dejected slouch. “Bugger. Right. For a moment, I forgot.” Looking up at Dorian, he suggested, “We’ll schedule a procedure, then? I’ll need you here for a minimum of twenty hours.”

John just about swallowed his tongue at that, but just then the hospital staff came back on the line to report that Dale Truelove had been released from evaluation and placed under observation in the ICU. Internal injuries could be touch-and-go even in this day and age.

“Thanks. Please contact Delta Division and let us know when he’s awake.”

Both Dorian and Rudy seemed to relax. John disconnected the call and Rudy said, “The outlook is good then?”

“No immediate danger.”

Rudy patted Dorian on the elbow. “Well done, my friend.”

John opened his mouth to argue: what the hell did Rudy think he was doing putting the weight of Dale Truelove’s survival squarely on Dorian’s shoulders?

“We’ll get out of your hair, Rudy,” Dorian quickly assured him, sliding off of The Table and struggling to put his patrolman’s jacket back on. John leaned over and tweaked the shoulder up to where it should be on the DRN’s arm, receiving a weary smile in thanks.

Yeah, it’d been a long day and it was by no means over with yet.

“Home or hospital?” John asked once they were in the cruiser and he wasn’t the least bit surprised by Dorian’s immediate answer: “Hospital.”

Visiting hours weren’t over yet, so John didn’t have to bully his way around. He and Dorian walked into the ICU’s adjoining waiting room. John recognized DT’s wife immediately despite the years it had been since they’d last talked.

“Billie Lynn,” John began, voice gravelly with the pressure of expectation and silence hanging in the air. “I’m John Kennex. We met--”

“I remember you, John.” She released the neckline of her stretch-out-of-shape sweater long enough to clasp his hand. Her skin was cold with tension.

“I’m acting-captain of Delta while Sandra Maldonado is away. Can I get you anything?” he inquired before she felt compelled to ask him how he’d been. Were he in her place right now, he wouldn’t give a damn.

She nodded slowly. Her hand gravitated back to her sweater, fingers curling in the weave. “Answers. Some answers would be good.”

“I understand.” But there wasn’t much he could say, not right now. It was too soon to know anything resembling facts. He turned and gestured her attention to the person standing beside him. “This is Dorian, DT’s trainee.”

She took in the dusty and frayed uniform, blinking. “You were in that building with him.”

“Yes, ma’am. I was right there next to him for the whole thing.”

She nodded, twisting her cardigan tighter in her fist. “Thank you.”

Dorian froze in a way that John recognized. The one where Dorian was shocked because the meaning he’d intended to convey had been the exact opposite of the message received.

So now was a good time for John to cut in. “We’re going to figure out what happened,” he promised.

Billie Lynn nodded, throat working.

“Can we give you a ride home?”

“No. No, I’m all right. My daughter’ll be here soon.”

John told her to _ **“ **Just hang in there,”****_ and then nodded for Dorian to come along down the hall. With a flash of his badge, John convinced a nurse to let him and Dorian look in on Sergeant Truelove. Well, John looked. Dorian stood back behind the partition and scanned. John kind of envied him the ability, to be honest; DT was a mess of bruises. The surface cuts had been sealed by laser stitchers, but only time would mend the damage under the skin.

And although John was staring long and hard at Dale Truelove, it was himself John saw. Sunk deep into a hospital bed. Immobile. The soft whir of scanners charting the early stages of healing.

It was a relief to retreat to the cruiser.

They buckled in and John reached over. Touched the back of Dorian’s hand. “I have to head back in to work. Do you want--”

“I need to submit my report.”

OK, then. Back to Delta Division they went. John had a virtual stack of alerts, requests, and files to sort through. All back-logged over the last four hours. Only four hours. Jesus. How had the city not devolved into seething chaos without John to tick boxes and scribble his digital signature?

Dorian was ready to go before John was, of course, so he suggested Dorian put his uniform through the washer downstairs. Maybe take a layer of dust off of himself and change into his old DRN uniform in the meantime. As he did that, John did something else. Something he would save for later: he forwarded himself a copy of the video and audio files Dorian had just submitted.

Policy required that the incident be investigated as soon as possible, most likely starting first thing tomorrow after forensics had a chance to collect and process the raw data in order to come up with a rough reconstruction of the collapse; it was going to be tough to get through and John didn’t want the first time he watched and listened to this footage to be in a conference room surrounded by various department reps where he had to focus on being a captain and not a partner.

Besides, John figured he wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight. Good thing he had something to keep himself busy while Dorian was charging.

John’s desktop was clear by the time Dorian stopped by again and, honestly, whether John was done for the day or not was irrelevant. He was done in. Wrung out. And Dorian was way too quiet.

“You wanna drive?” John asked and Dorian just shook his head. He didn’t turn on the radio. Didn’t check if John was taking them out for noodles first. The silence stretched with every passing block. So did the thin band of John’s sanity. To the point that he put his arms around Dorian the instant they both got in the door. “I need a minute, here, D,” John murmured, letting his eyes close and his guard lower because, finally, he could. Inside “their” place.

For a brief -- but oh so painfully worrying -- moment of hesitation, Dorian remained stiff as a statue, and then he leaned in and leaned on John and John’s eyes stung at the suddenness of relief. Sweet, shocking relief.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Dorian whispered.

“Then let me think about it with you.” He rubbed Dorian’s back. “Show me?”

Dorian scooped up John’s personal tablet and John followed him over to the sofa. Sat down, leaned back, and coaxed Dorian into the circle of his arms. Dorian’s shoulder rested on top of John’s heart and he was almost positive that Dorian could feel its steady beats.

Snuggling close, John pressed kisses to patches of skin in between the cuts on Dorian’s face. He’d be back to normal by roll call. Like it had never happened. But it had. And nobody processed trauma that fast. Especially not DRNs.

“Whenever you’re ready,” John encouraged, not the least bit mocking or frustrated. For once.

Dorian took a deep breath -- the air he probably didn’t need, but the moment, yeah, that probably helped a little -- and then he pressed the tip of his finger to the tablet screen.

There were no processing lights as Dorian played the recording. Nothing to distract John from the scene unfolding in front of him. All from Dorian’s eyes.

Dale Truelove was smiling, plucking at a pleat in his jacket sleeve.

“Precision work,” Dorian complimented. “Yours?”

“Hm. Of course mine. My wife isn’t allowed near my uniform.”

John huffed, recalling the poor, poor sweater she’d been mutilating in the waiting room.

“Is that a recent development, or--”

“Signal lost.”

The angle swerved around as Dorian looked over and scanned the MX trailing in their wake. John tried to keep up with the various messages that blinked on the screen as Dorian evaluated the other android.

“Same as the other times?” DT asked quietly.

“Yeah. I’m still not detecting any attempts at hacking.”

“OK. Any drones or satellites overhead?”

“Same as before. Nothing listed officially.” The angle swept upward toward the sky and John’s brows arched at all the data Dorian could get just by looking up. “Commercial airliner on approach at International. Well out of range.”

“Underfoot?”

Next, John got a pretty detailed view of the pavement. Dorian stepped over to a gutter grate and scanned through that as well. Numbers blinked, but from the DRN’s sigh, they meant a whole lot of nothing.

“Nope.”

DT moved on to the next item on their checklist: “Shielded buildings?”

“On the right. A printing press. Currently out of business. The property is in probate.”

Just one more company specializing in obsolete tech that hadn’t managed to make enough of a name for itself to survive the conversion to paperless. The only remaining printing presses in the city offered custom printing at astronomical prices. (John had heard a rumor that printed family histories and genealogies were considered delightfully quaint by Chromes. Good wedding gifts, apparently. But it was entirely possible that Val had been pulling his leg.)

DT took up position just to the right of the door. Dorian braced himself on the left.

John’s chin twitched with surprise as Dorian queued two contacts internally: dispatch and John. A second contact wasn’t standard procedure and was sure to be noticed at the inquiry. But John didn’t ask about it now. Not when the sergeant was banging on the door, announcing both himself and Dorian: “Police! Anyone on the premises?”

He glanced at Dorian and the fringes of the video shifted as Dorian shook his head. “I’m not reading any life signs.”

“Then let’s check it out.”

The MX went through the door first, followed by DT with Dorian bringing up the rear. The lobby was completely gutted. Not even the reception desk remained. Just a few bolts poking up out of the floor. The same went for the offices lining the main corridor. A conference room without light fixtures. A supply closet without shelves. The factory space itself was a wasteland of dust and more bolt-studded floor.

John told himself not to tense when Dorian turned toward the storage area and loading bay. Dorian’s scanners swept every inch of the place, data pulsing across the screen so thick that John could barely see their surroundings.

“There was nothing out of the ordinary,” the Dorian in John’s arms narrated, frustrated and befuddled.

But there had to be because that building had been a trap. In the next instant, it was sprung.

Overhead, a strange trumpeting blast. Followed by a series of zipping crackles. And then an ear-splitting **_**snap!**_**

Dorian’s sensors went crazy, alerts flashing. John saw Dorian select dispatch, presumably to send out a distress signal, and grab DT’s arm, swinging the man toward the nearest wall--

And then a hard shove from behind sent both Dorian and DT flying. A brief sensor flicker identified the source: the MX.

Daylight speared through dust as the ceiling crashed down, folding and splintering. Thick clouds and terrifying noise. The tablet screen flickered with static as Dorian was jostled or as Dorian struggled, John couldn’t be sure which. And then the roaring tumble ceased. Gave a final, weak cough of sliding pebbles. A groan of weight resettling.

Dorian’s scans were on the fritz now, but John could see down the front of Dorian’s uniform to where his hands were bracing up a slab of cracked and crumbling concrete, held together with bent and exposed rebar. Turning left, John was given a view of a sprawled figure, glowing with infrared. Sergeant Truelove. In Dorian’s unnatural stillness, John could see the man’s chest moving. He was breathing.

The call to dispatch went through and the footage paused.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t call you, too,” Dorian told John, but John remembered what Rudy had said about Dorian rerouting all available power just to keep keep his strength from giving out.

“You were at your limit.”

“Actually, I’d exceeded it. By 6.8 kilograms.”

Damn. God damn. Seven kilograms. By all rights, Dorian shouldn’t even be alive right now because of seven Goddamn kilograms. But he was. He was alive and the MX’s quick decision to act, to shove Dorian out of the kill zone, played no small part in that.

John had never seen an MX do something like that before. Something to ask Rudy about.

Yeah, John had seen pretty much firsthand what had gone down today. And he still had more questions than answers.


	18. Teamwork

Though there was still plenty of ruble to sift through at the site of the collapsed printing company, John decided to go ahead with the inquiry. The incident reconstruction wasn’t going to win any film awards, but it illustrated the disaster just fine. Neither Dorian nor Dale Truelove nor their clobbered MX was at fault. That much was clear. And brainstorming the problem might actually lead to a little headway. That was John’s hope.

“You’re going to be in the room,” Dorian confirmed as John sipped from his coffee cup. They had twenty minutes before they both needed to be out the door. John had just sent off a message to Officers Safety and IA and Sandra’s bosses, letting them know that the show was starting at 10 a.m. sharp.

“Yeah. I kind of have to be there.” The half-empty coffee mug landed on the counter with a _****thunk!**** _ Sliding his phone back in his pocket, John asked, “Is that a problem?”

“No.” Dorian moved in close to wind his arms around John’s shoulders and press a kiss to his hair. “It’ll be good to have at least one person on my side.”

John lifted a hand to clutch Dorian’s wrist against his chest. “Always, man. Just--you’re prepared for this?” In response to Dorian’s lifted brow, John spelled it out: “As the only member of your team capable of giving a report, everyone’s going to want more than just a timeline of events.”

“My impressions?”

“And logical conclusion.” And this was something that MXs specialized in (to the point of finding themselves staring down the messy end of John’s service weapon), but Dorian’s strength was _****intuition.****_ And John seriously doubted that anyone attending the coming meeting would phrase their questions in a way that accounted for that. Damn it all.

With a sigh, John levered himself off of his seat to hunt up the travel thermos Dorian had given him for Christmas. He’d need at least three cups of coffee before kickoff. At least. One here at home. One in the cruiser. And the third he’d make the time to guzzle while hiding in a supply closet if he had to.

They got in early enough that Dorian had time to change back into his cleaned patrol uniform and John snuck a doughnut. It was a wasted effort, though, because the cinnamon and sugar soured on his tongue as soon as he called the hospital for an update. DT’s condition was largely unchanged, but at this point, maybe that was good news: it meant no further complications had developed.

John relayed all this at roll call and handed out a fresh batch of cases.

“You going to be on your best behavior today, Kennex?” Paul jeered. “Or are we going to be treated with an encore of you lighting out of here like your hair’s on fire?”

“That’s not something you need to worry about,” Val observed with a pointed glance at Paul’s shiny, bald head.

Yeah, everyone in the bullpen enjoyed that. Dorian turned his own giggle into a cough.

“OK, so what’re you guys waiting for--a pep cheer?” John snarked and then shooed them away. “Get on with it!”

“Detective?”

John tried really hard not to yell at Dorian for calling him that. “What can I do for you, Officer Dorian?”

Technically, the DRN was Officer 0167, but just this once, the department had made an exception and issued him a nameplate with his given name. So that was what John used.

“Which conference room will we be in? I’d like to organize my comments in advance.”

John pointed him in the direction of Room 03 and then the sound of a throat clearing had John turning around and just about groaning at the veritable line that had formed in his shadow. He was _****yae****_ close to conscripting an MX to hand out those little waiting numbers that used to be so popular at banks and whatnot decades ago.

Ten hundred hours could not come fast enough.

But come it did and John shut himself in a glass room with reps from four distinct divisions: Officers Safety, Internal Affairs, the Chief’s Office, and the Android Officers Review Board. John nodded to his old buddy from the academy, undecided on whether the chairman’s presence here was a good thing or not. John took the seat closest to the door so that he could duck out and sign permission slips for law enforcement field trips. He had his scowl all prepped and ready for those snot-nosed interruptions, too.

In the meantime, he got the ball rolling by introducing himself: “I’m Detective John Kennex, acting captain of Delta Division in Sandra Maldonado’s absence. As you may know, Sergeant Dale Truelove was injured yesterday in a building collapse. Everyone should have received a copy of the reconstruction video.”

John got a gratifying amount of agreeable confirmation in response and continued, “I’ve asked Sergeant Truelove’s partner -- Officer Dorian -- to explain the purpose of their assignment and give us an update on their progress.” John cued him with a look and Dorian took the floor.

The assignment parameters were simply explained -- that was the easy part. And then Dorian’s memory files started playing on the monitor. Watching events unfold through Dorian’s eyes last night had been as enlightening as it had been horrifying. The only other time John had done this had been back when Dorian had thrown down with the XRN.

And it didn’t matter how many times John viewed yesterday’s footage--

(Countless, actually, because John had called it when he’d predicted his own insomnia. So while Dorian had been charging last night, John had been sitting up in bed, the sheet sunken where John’s right leg should have been, feeling intimidated by the darkness of his own home as he’d watched -- over and over again -- as Dorian and DT had entered the abandoned building.)

\--every time John saw Dorian and DT cross that loading bay threshold, it knocked him flat. There was no counter to this sucker punch. Not even the comforting truth that Dorian had survived it.

John tried not to wince at the strange noise that came right before the snap-and-crack of the roof breaking overhead.

“Forensics is still going over the audio,” John contributed as soon as the cave-in stopped and there was nothing but silence. Both from the display unit and the room’s occupants. Sure, they had a reconstruction of _****how****_ the building had caved-in, but nobody had made any progress in figuring out _****why.****_

Dorian added, “There was no data transmitted from the MX, and I didn’t detect any explosives or local devices. Nothing.”

So, yeah, it looked glum.

“To clarify: no tech has been recovered at any of the sites where loss of MX signal occurred,” the IA officer pointed out, focusing on the failure. As only an IA dirtbag would.

“That’s correct,” Dorian replied, admirably unphased. “Utilizing an MX and conducting searches of the vicinity in which it reports a loss of signal has not led to hard evidence.”

And then the thing that John had been bracing himself for happened: someone who knew even less about DRNs than John opened his stupid mouth.

The man from Officers Safety dived in: “What justifies continuing this op as is?”

Dorian looked down. Paused. Because according to Dorian’s constructs, the lives of police officers were supposed to be prioritized above just about everything else. So he probably couldn’t offer a justification except for the fact that the job had to be done.

John figured this was where someone who did understand a thing or two about DRNs needed to jump in. He prompted, “Assuming the tech is not on-site, we’d be talking about transmission or reflection, something along those lines?”

“Yes,” Dorian agreed and called up the map with the overlaid patrol routes. “Just from a glance, I can tell you that one origin point for a transmission would not account for every instance of blocked signals.” Each site was highlighted in white, and they appeared to be completely random. “Possibilities include one origin with multiple signal reflectors, multiple transmission points working together, or a mobile point of origin. I recommend having an MX run the numbers. It should be able to generate zones of high probability for each scenario.”

“Can’t _****you****_ narrow it down?” the police chief’s gopher demanded.

John clutched his coffee cup tighter and made a concentrated effort not to hurl it at the asshole. He liked this mug; it and John had history.

“Without knowing more about the perpetrators’ motives, no, not with confidence,” Dorian replied bluntly.

The chairman of the Android Officers Review Board pressed, “How do you feel your skills would be best applied at this point?”

Finally, a decent question. Behind Door Number Four.

Dorian’s shoulders squared with renewed confidence. “While the affected area is important, I’d like to concentrate on other factors.” He pointed to the monitor as a corresponding time for each report popped up on the screen. Processing lights glowed on Dorian’s cheek as he said, “I’m currently running a search to see if the majority of these correlates with a desirable target.”

“That’s a lot of data to cover,” John pointed out for the benefit of the idiots in the room.

“It is, but this is what I _****can****_ do. I can work with very broad categories of information, combining both hard data and past criminal activities -- and even anticipate criminal trends -- to suggest connection. Possible avenues of investigation,” he simplified. For those same idiots in the room.

John slapped a palm down on the table. “OK. Well, that’s what you’ll be doing today, then. Let me know if you need anything to help those avenues open up.” He glanced around the room. “I think we’re done here.”

He’d say this about being an acting captain: telling other people to get out of his territory was one hell of a perk.

John was even feeling generous enough to hold the door open for the departing guests. He glanced over to see if Dorian was paying attention to John’s awesome host skills. He wasn’t. Of course. He was shaking the hand of the Android Officers Review Board chairman. Smiling at whatever the man was saying.

Well, OK. John could show off another time.

And since whatever they were chatting about was certainly none of John’s business (or Captain Maldonado’s) he left them to it. He had a desk to supervise and busywork to wrangle.

Ten minutes and two authorizations later, John looked up and grinned at the familiar sight of Dorian standing next to his terminal. “Do you mind if I work here? I don’t think I’ll be in anyone’s way.”

“Knock yourself out,” John approved, settling in and _****finally**** _feeling like he was back. Yeah, it didn’t take skywriting to figure out what had been missing from John’s work environment.

So Dorian did his thing, scanning through seemingly random databases, and John did his thing -- or, more accurately, the captain’s thing. His eyeballs were a screen refresh away from drying up into raisins when he decided it was time for a lunchtime sanity break.

He stood up and reached for his jacket, lifting it from the back of the chair. “Hey, D. Gotta get a bite. You--”

Dorian’s hand shot out. His fingers gripped John’s bicep. Hard. “John, airplanes.”

“Say what--airplanes?” He recalled one from the footage Dorian had shared. “The connection?”

Dorian nodded. “Yeah, man. Accounting for the most recent incident, the only thing that matches up with the timing is commercial air traffic.”

John leaned over his terminal and brought up a list of scheduled flights in and out of the city. “Which airport?”

“International.”

“All flights on time?”

“Actually, they appear to have arrived early and were directed to maintain a holding pattern. Anywhere from ten to twenty-five minutes.”

Ten to twenty-five minutes. Roughly the same duration as the MX blackouts. John straightened up. “Someone’s targeting airplanes.”

“And they must be using a frequency that MXs would detect or even run on, but I don’t.”

“So they aim a jammer at the MX to keep it from reporting the activity to the police database.” John thumped a fist on the top of his monitor. “Leaving us wondering what’s up but not having any specifics.” John frowned. “Interference with an aircraft would definitely get noticed. Why haven’t we heard anything from the FAA?”

Dorian posited, “Perhaps the tech is still in the developmental stages.”

“So they’d have to be near an airport -- the busier the better -- for practice.”

“Trial runs and experiments.” Dorian lowered his voice. “John, if they’re coming up with some kind of device that can lock a signal onto a moving aircraft at twenty thousand feet…”

“There’s no way it doesn’t get weaponized,” John concluded. Even if the engineers intended to use it for hacking and identity theft -- passengers with wireless devices were sitting ducks up there -- someone somewhere would tweak it for scrambling the plane’s navigation system. Or just painting a moving target at great distances with a laser and launching a guided missile. What a niche market. “OK, we’ve got a working theory. What have the MXs come up with on the location?”

Too much, as it turned out. There were far too many scenarios to choose from. John looked away from the flickering monitor and the dozens of possibilities. “What does your gut tell you on this one, D?”

“They’re mobile. They’d have to be unless they plan to get caught.”

“Yeah, I’ll second that.” Continued use of a stationary signal would bring the police to their doorstep in under an hour. And as the device didn’t seem to be fully operational yet, it was likely that there was just the one and not a system of separate signals working in tandem. That would come later, after they perfected the prototype.

Which brought them back to their original problem: “Right, so. Officer Dorian, how are we going to catch them?”

Dorian smiled, slow and sly. “With their weakest link.”

Ah, man. John was already looking forward to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t generally follow the latest developments in military technology. As far as I know, there are no weapons systems that can target an airborne jet from the ground. There are laser-guided missiles that are used by drones and fighter jets, sure, but they have limitations on what kind of targets they can successfully hit. The device that John and Dorian are talking about is a lot more sophisticated, capable of compensating for the revolution of the Earth, wind, and all sorts of other factors between sea level and 20,000 feet.


	19. Dorian's First Bust

“This is my bust, John.”

John held up a hand and nodded Dorian to the nearest empty meeting room. This wasn’t a conversation that a police captain would normally have in the middle of the bullpen and John was channeling his inner Captain Maldonado.

“I know,” he replied as the door shut behind them. He left the glass clear because transparency was also something Sandra was big on. Or more like something she made an effort to give the appearance of. John could see the benefits: her people trusted her. Maybe she couldn’t tell them everything, but she told them as much as she could. She kept her instructions clear and her people safe. Something John wouldn’t say no to getting a little extra practice at.

“You put this whole thing together,” John acknowledged with no small amount of pride and wonder. “But you’re a patrolman.” And a probationary one at that. “You’re not a detective.”

“Then assign me to assist whoever you hand the case over to. Let me do this. For Sergeant Truelove.”

“Yeah, yeah, OK. Let’s see where Paul and Val are at on their cases today.”

They had time -- hell, they made time -- to bring in the assholes who had put DT in the ICU. John sent Dorian with Val to International. They had an air traffic controller with a big, fat bank account (and a schedule that lined up suspiciously well with the targeted jets) to bring in for questioning.

John hid a smirk as he ordered Paul to dress down into a patrol uniform and get his ass on the street to pick up where Dorian and DT had left off. But this time, they’d have backup standing by.

Rudy supplied a gadget that would zero in on the frequency ranges used by MXs. “Flip it on when your MX experiences radio silence,” the scientist instructed Paul, “and it’ll give you a location.”

“Call it in and lock it down,” John instructed. “Do not pursue. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Paul huffed. “If you can’t have any of the glory, neither can the rest of us, huh?”

“Actually, it takes four hours to fill out injured idiot officer reports.” John rolled his shoulders. “It’d be easier to stuff you in a box and ship you to Abu Dhabi.”

“You’ve given that some thought, huh?”

“I know how much you love being at the center of attention, but try not to break out into song and dance, Patrolman Paul.”

The sting went down like clockwork. Val and Dorian brought in the suspect. She charmed the guy stupid and then Dorian caught him in a vise of two evils. The air traffic controller chose to cooperate. Imagine that. Then it was back to the airport and time for him to receive scheduled instructions from his cohorts.

When an optimal flight came in range, the opportunistic flea instructed the pilot to hold before landing. Paul and his MX were already on the ground, waiting for the jammer to cut out the MX’s signal.

John swiveled his attention between the monitors. Val and Dorian at International. Paul and the MX walking the beat. It took three tries -- three jumbo jets full of oblivious passengers -- before they got a hit.

“Detective Paul. I have lost communication and scanning abilities,” the MX reported and Paul pushed the button activating Rudy’s gizmo.

They had a fix on a location in under ten seconds.

“SWAT, move in,” John ordered and added a third monitor to his channel surfing. Pulse rifles leading the charge through shadowy alleys and past rusty doors and corrugated sheet metal. Tucked inside the garage of a rundown liquor distributor, SWAT cornered the suspects’ vehicle. Arrests were made. One weapon-in-the-making confiscated.

“All in a day’s work,” Paul declared with a smirk, shoulders thrown back.

John sniped, “It’s end of shift in another time zone far, far away. Get to their base of operations.” Because this dinky little camper wasn’t the main event.

The truck’s GPS log led them right to the main cache outside of town, way out in the Ag Zone. Where significant power consumption wouldn’t be noticed because a lot of farmers were using water filtration systems and artificial lighting these days, growing crops underground for off-season harvests and certified, organic produce.

Amid the accumulation of tech at the inconspicuous farmhouse, they discovered the answer to the building’s collapse. A jury-rigged, sonic pulse cannon. Short-range weapon. It focused sound waves to send out a blast capable of causing physical damage. John thought of the eerie, chaotic trumpeting just before the roof had opened up and figured they could check another box on their report. 

One more remained open: someone had taken that shot. Someone had chosen the target and calculated the angle and hauled this machine into position. Someone had waited for Dorian and DT to step into the cross hairs before pulling the metaphorical trigger.

And that someone had a one-way ticket to the Cubes.

_****\--That’s good work, John. Tell the team I said so.** ** _

Even that praise from Sandra Maldonado couldn’t unlock the rage clamped tight around John’s heart.

“You look furious, man.” Dorian made this observation as John pulled out of the precinct parking lot. It was late and he was tired. Tired of being chained to a desk. Tired of resisting the urge to throw Paul off the roof of the building. Tired of playing captain.

Dorian flicked John’s shoulder. “Today was a good day.”

“Yeah. We got the bad guys. Took dangerous tech off the streets. Closed the case.” John nudged the winker, turning off of their regular route home and Dorian got very quiet. They were heading for the hospital.

“Has there been any news?” That tone. So quiet. Much like the one Dorian had used back in December when he’d asked about John’s father. Asked if there was any possibility that the allegations against Ed Kennex could be true.

John said, “The staff are bringing him around for a few minutes tonight. I figured you’d want to be there.”

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely.”

In the silence that followed, John reached for Dorian’s hand and gripped it hard.

Billie Lynn was there pacing the length of waiting room as her daughter sat hunched in a chair, twisting a magazine into a lance of shiny news stock. John struggled to remember her name, but came up blank. The woman gently massaging the shoulders of DT’s daughter must be the wife. John hadn’t been able to go to the wedding. A coma had kinda gotten in the way.

“You both came,” Billie Lynn said, sounding relieved.

“With news. Dorian,” John prompted with a nod, approving the release of information now that the case was pretty much wrapped up.

John stood lookout for the nurse as Dorian quietly imparted the highlights. The relief brought tears to Billie Lynn’s eyes and her daughter enfolded her trembling body in her arms.

“Thank you,” Billie Lynn’s daughter-in-law said, offering her hand to Dorian. And damned if Dorian didn’t shake it in that old, antiquated style, grasping her fingers and lifting her hand as though he was intending to place a kiss upon the back of it. John didn’t think that was even in a database anywhere anymore.

“A nurse is coming,” John interrupted, giving everyone a minute to pull themselves together.

“Family of Dale Truelove? If you’ll follow me.”

At the partition beside DT’s bed, John put out a hand to Dorian. “We’ll be here if he’d like to see either of us.”

John tried not to listen in as DT whispered to his family. Billie Lynn and their their daughter Clarissa (Ah-hah! That was her name!) and her wife Tamine. DT’s main concern seemed to be that they were all OK, completely ignoring the fact that he was the one being deliberately kept immobile in a hospital bed.

“I’m OK,” he told them. “I’m OK.”

To hell with public places. John reached for Dorian’s hand.

“Dorian -- my partner -- did he make it? Did they tell you?”

Beside him, Dorian’s entire being cringed with aching emotion. He hadn’t expected DT to remember him?

“He’s here,” Billie Lynn replied. “Would you like to see him?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I would.”

John squeezed Dorian’s hand to get his attention. “Today was a good day. You tell him.” This wasn’t about any perceived failure on Dorian’s part. This was about giving DT hope and strength. “Smile,” he added, dropping Dorian’s hand as Tamine peered around the screen and gestured for Dorian to come in.

Hanging back, John crossed his arms and listened with head bowed as Dorian recapped the case. He idly scanned the posted visitor’s log and smiled at Sandra’s digital signature in the video conference column. Yeah, of course she’d called in to check on one of her men.

“You did it,” DT rasped sleepily.

“We did it. We all did it, man. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Dorian backed out on a smile and a wave. With one step, he was behind the screen, and with another, he was in the circle of John’s arms. His forehead pressed to John’s shoulder and John held on tight as Dorian breathed hot breaths. Emotional pain raising his core temperature. John just petted his back and let him work it out.

“Do you want to talk?” John asked when they got home.

Dorian shook his head and scooted in close. What he wanted was a cuddle, huh? OK, John could deal with that.

What he couldn’t deal with was Richard Paul’s leer at 0855 the following morning. “What,” John barked in between sips of coffee.

“This’ll brighten your day,” the man insisted, shoving a tablet under John’s nose.

John skimmed the text and it was all he could do not to groan. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What? I thought DRNs got you all excited.”

John didn’t even reward that with a glare. Clutching the mug tightly with his thumb and three fingers, John scrolled through the backlog of Morris’ reports with his pinkie until he was sure he wasn’t taking the news out of context. He wasn’t.

And then he checked the date of this little surprise party. It was tomorrow. John’s scheduled day off. Oh, yeah. Even better.

“Great. Fantastic. Tell Rudy.” John signed off on the request, approving passage for three DRNs through Wall and into the city. He tossed the tablet back Paul’s way and got even more wonderful news for his trouble.

“That Shaw guy who made all those sexbots,” Paul mentioned offhandedly, “took a plea. Sentencing was yesterday. So I guess this means that other DRN -- the one he put that virus on and smuggled past the Wall -- is good to go, too.”

John narrowed his eyes. “What is this -- since when are DRNs on your radar?”

“They’re on yours.” Paul grinned like he was having the time of his overvalued life. “And if I heckle you about how you just about hung a medal on Dorian, you’ll write me up for harassment.”

No, John would send Paul’s unobservant ass back to the academy. Because John had very deliberately not started the standing ovation that Dorian had received when he’d walked into the precinct yesterday with suspects in tow. That had been all Valerie. John had been the one to rain on the parade and break the party up: suspects had gone to interrogation and everyone else had gone back to work.

John said, “A medal, huh? Only in your dreams. Better not let me catch you sleeping on duty.” But the toothy grin John gave him very much implied how very much John would love for that to happen. The chance to make Paul own up to an infraction that was also caught on video. Oh, man. And John’s birthday was still months away.

John was still smiling as Paul stomped off. Checking the time, John decided he had a minute to place a call.

“Rudy, hey,” he too-cheerfully greeted when the call connected. “You hear the news?”

“Three more DRNs?”

“Plus Russell, there.”

“Right, right. Well, my wand’s at the ready. Er, I mean, the activation wand. For the DRNs. Not my--”

“Excellent,” John enthused, saving himself from the desire to visit a memory scrubber. “You telling Dorian or shall I?”

“Ah, why not let you do the honors. And I’ll expect you both in the lab tomorrow, then?”

“We’ll be there with bells on.” Because tomorrow they were upping the ante. This was the start of Round Two.


	20. Welcome to Delta Division

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Sexytimes

“How’d things go with Mariandra Hernandez?” John asked conversationally. It was the end of shift and Dorian had just stomped over to John’s terminal in the bullpen. And if Dorian’s smiles were sunny then this frown was a veritable thundercloud.

“How do you think it went?”

John bit back a smile because he really, really didn’t want Dorian to make him spend the whole night alone. Now that Dorian had his own apartment, that was a very real option. “Could have been better?” John hazarded a guess.

“Am I being punished? Have I done something wrong? Why would you put us together?”

Oh, boy. Conference room time. John almost said it out loud, but. But. He just couldn’t. Couldn’t do that to the rest of Delta Division. They were a family and this right here was what they’d all been waiting for. Dorian’s reaction.

Paul was putting on a show of updating his case files. Val was also working late. Supposedly finishing up a report. Gorson had been flipping through the evidence log celos for the last twenty minutes, waiting for this.

Tucking his chin in, John cleared his throat, but Dorian didn’t wait for a response.

“I’ve never been interested in glory. And I don’t appreciate being patronized. Do you realize she accepted calls from the media on my behalf? Without my permission, John! John, this is not funny. Do you have any idea the kinds of things she told reporters about my schematics!?”

“I will after I read this evening’s news,” John sputtered out on a laugh that he just could not hold in any longer. At the desk across the way, Paul put his head down with an audible _****thump!**** _ He was wheezing with laughter so hard that there were tears glistening in his lashes. Val’s lips were twitching. Gorson was biting down on a knuckle.

“This evening’s news,” Dorian repeated in a deadly hiss. “Yes, I suppose that’s as close as anyone in Delta Division will ever come to knowing anything about it.”

Oh, shit.

“Dorian--”

“No. No, this is intolerable, John! I refuse to be treated like--”

“The guy who cracked the case?”

“--like a--what?”

“Or maybe like the rookie cop who grew a little fast for his britches?” John leaned back in his chair and waggled his brows.

“What… is going on here?” Dorian was looking at all of them like he was calculating how many loony bin buses to request.

Paul came up for air, gasping. “I can’t believe a bot doesn’t even know--”

“Richard,” John warned, suddenly all business because words like “bot” were as condescending as words like “chick” or “kid.” Words like that could get someone written up for discrimination in the workplace. An ugly mark on anyone’s jacket.

“Dorian,” Val cut in, “Sergeant Hernandez didn’t take any calls from the media. They were from us.”

Dorian took half a second to examine the possibility. “But I didn’t recognize your voices.”

“You weren’t meant to,” she explained. “We borrowed from old vids on the Net. Paparazzi.”

Dorian gawped. “But why?”

She shrugged without an iota of apology. “It was just a bit of hazing. Surely you noticed that we all gave John a hard time the day after you guys came out of the Sanderson Building.”

And John had obviously taken it like a champ.

Dorian looked confused. “I thought that was just normal teasing.”

Oh, Jesus. Now that explained a hell of a lot.

Rolling his head back, John spoke to the lights. “No good deed goes unpunished. Especially your first.” He tacked that last bit on with a sidelong glance at Dorian.

Paul pushed himself to his feet and leaned over to smack Dorian’s arm. “Consider your Delta Division cherry popped.”

Val grimaced. “Ugh. Paul.”

He beamed, proud of the reaction his vulgarity had produced. Had Captain Maldonado been here, she would have busted his chops. But it was one minute past end of shift and tomorrow was John’s day off. So he let it go.

“Welcome to the Delta Division family, Officer Dorian.” John flapped his arms wide to indicate the bullpen, inadvertently cuing a round of obnoxious applause and wolf whistles.

Dorian snorted and managed a rueful -- hell, a borderline bashful -- grin. “You guys are terrible.”

“And we get worse every day,” Paul promised.

“OK, OK, show’s over,” John declared. “Clear out, you ingrates. Dorian, you want a ride home tonight?”

“Only if you promise not to call the Times.”

John held up his right hand and swore: “I promise not to tell a soul.”

“I don’t!” Gorson shouted, flashing his phone around like he was about to blab all the juicy gossip in a conference call with the major networks.

“Hey, Gorson. Life -- live it. Starting now,” John advised, pulling his jacket on.

Outside, John passed Dorian the remote key to the cruiser. As a peace offering.

“I’m not angry with you, John.”

Wow. Just lookit who was clued in. “Yeah? You sure? ‘Cause you looked pretty upset back in the bullpen.”

“I get it now.” Dorian was smiling all charmed and wistful, so John decided to believe him.

“Great. You can tell DT all about it.”

They arrived at the hospital fifteen minutes before the end of visiting hours. And DT was very entertained by Dorian’s account of the department’s time honored hazing ritual.

When they got back to the cruiser, John asked, “Where to?”

“Home. Of course.” He said it like he assumed John would know what he meant, so John just went with it and passed him the keys.

“Big day tomorrow.” Which Dorian knew all about. After he’d partnered them up just after roll call, John had read Dorian and Hernandez in on it. Just a sneak peek at tomorrow’s assignment: greet the arriving DRNs at the main gate and escort them to Rudy’s lab. For starters.

Dorian’s smile widened into a grin. “I know. It’s exciting.”

“Any idea what we’re gonna do with them?”

“Yes. Don’t worry, John. I’ve made arrangements.” Dorian paused. “So has Samantha Rubin.”

“Oh, great.” John rubbed his eyes.

“It works in our favor to keep public interest focused on the DRNs right now. For momentum.”

John held up a hand. “No, no. I get it. Just not a fan of the whole--” He gesticulated aimless circles.

“Cheering crowds of supporters?”

“Circus.”

“John.”

“I’m a grouch. And it’s dinner time. And I’m tired. What do you want from me.”

“Quit your bellyachin’,” Dorian scolded gently.

John just grunted and, tilting his head back against the seat, closed his eyes for the next half mile. Until he couldn’t stand the unanswered questions bonking around in his skull another minute: “So--what do you have planned for the returning DRNs?”

Dorian answered as if John hadn’t needed a mental health minute to himself, picking up right where he’d left off. Upbeat tone included. “Jeannie Hartman says Mid City Floral could use the help. I recommended Goku.”

“D, can the Hartmans afford to pay--”

“It’s just temporary.”

Yeah, OK. “And James?”

“I thought he’d like to visit his previous place of employment. The assisted living center. I called ahead and they still have his charger. The director seemed willing to discuss re-employment.”

“What about famous Forney?”

“Samantha says she’ll look after him.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” John muttered. At Dorian’s prompting look, he blustered, “She’s an activist, D. A vocal one. With an agenda. And paranoia is pretty much my default setting. Whatever crazy scheme she’s got in mind could ripple out, y’know. To you. To us.”

Dorian’s hand found John’s. “I’m concerned, too. I’ll speak to Forney.”

Yeah, warn him, more like. “So that just leaves 789 -- Russell.”

“I was considering,” Dorian began very, very slowly, “that he might stay at my place. For a little while.”

“OK,” John answered, honestly not caring what Dorian did with his apartment. It wasn’t John’s call and he wasn’t going to be a bully about it. “But, wait. Back up. Where’s Goku going to charge?”

“At Samantha’s place. Or at mine.”

“Not at Rudy’s?”

“I’d like to keep Rudy’s lab as far out of the spotlight as possible.”

Because Rudy’s was a place for damaged and vulnerable androids to go for help. It ought to be low-key. Restful. Not a target. “Right. OK.” He shifted, pulling their joined hands into a more stable position on his thigh. “Sounds good, D. You’re on top of it.”

“I’d rather be on top of you.”

John guffawed at the utter terribleness of that irredeemable line. Until his imagination caught up and a mental image took shape… of himself sprawled out belly-down on the bed, Dorian’s hand pressing between his shoulder blades as he fucked into John. Relentlessly.

Holy hell. No way could John hide the spike in his pulse rate. But. He took a look at the speedometer and scoffed. “Whatever. You’re not even doing the speed limit.” So much for being all hot and bothered.

Dorian considered that for a moment, head tilting to the side, and then stepped on the gas.

John didn’t end up flat on the bed. After a shower and a quick dinner that Dorian had insisted on cooking, John let Dorian’s hands roll him onto his side, and John tugged him in close when the DRN spooned up behind him.

It was slow, shallow and sweet, both the stretch and the slide that followed. John groaned his approval of the sleepy pace, hooked his foot behind Dorian’s knee, and braced himself open because hell yes he wanted it. Wanted this. Wanted Dorian pumping into him with measured thrusts as the DRN’s hot breath ghosted over John’s nape. He sighed into Dorian’s embrace, going completely lax against his lover when a warm hand wandered between his thighs.

Oh, God. If only every night could end like this. Dorian making love to him with skin-sizzling sweeps of his hand and brain-meltingly hot thrusts of his cock. John’s cheek pillowed on the DRN’s firm bicep. Dorian’s fingers tangled with John’s.

“How does it feel, John?” Dorian murmured and John shivered in helplessly hot reaction.

“Beautiful. Oh, damn…”

“Beautiful,” Dorian agreed on a hum, thumbing John’s nipple and nuzzling freckled skin in answer to John’s hitching gasp. “So beautiful.”

Dorian wasn’t talking about the sensations anymore. If he ever had been. He was talking about John, and John was not beautiful. He would have shot back with hard truth and fury or just plain mockery had anyone else tossed that particular word John’s way. Because Detective John Kennex was missing pieces of his memory, his body, his life. Cracked and worn thin to the point of hideous.

But here and now, he wasn’t Detective John Kennex. He was Dorian’s fiancé. He was Dorian’s. And if Dorian thought he was beautiful, John wasn’t going to argue. Just this once.

And then Dorian coaxed John’s fingers tight around his own length and Dorian’s hand migrated to his hip. “You ready to unravel for me, John?”

Oh, hell yeah. So ready. He managed a jerky nod and then Dorian was moving with purpose and the heat was building faster than John could exhale. Breath caught in his lungs as the shimmering wave started. So close--so close--just--just--just--

The heat and sparkles swelled to the point of bursting. John fell back, surrendered to the wave as it crested under his skin. Panting in counterpoint to Dorian’s whimpers as his fingertips flashed with light. Riding the high. Delirious and satisfied. Overheated bodies stilled.

“Damn. So good, D,” he sighed out and felt Dorian’s nod against his shoulder.

Body tingling pleasantly and mind utterly empty of anything beyond a gentle fog of happiness, John closed his eyes.

And opened them to middle-of-the-night darkness. Silence.

“I’ve got to charge. Go back to sleep,” Dorian whispered as he shifted his arm out from beneath John’s pillow, pulling John toward consciousness with the loss of the DRN’s solid and surrounding warmth.

“Urgh,” John objected, squinting at the clock. “It’s almost five in the morning. No time.”

“I’ll manage.”

He was too sleepy to argue. “Go charge, D.”

“Grumpy and bossy.”

“You love it.” John rolled toward his pillow. A hand on his right thigh -- a slight hesitation -- and when John didn’t refuse, Dorian gently disconnected his leg. “Thanks,” he added when he heard the soft chirp of the leg docking on its charger.

“You’re welcome, John.”

At the feel of fingertips ghosting through his disheveled hair, John groused, “Hey. What happened to charging?”

Lips pressed to the dragon tattoo on John’s upper arm.

John huffed. “I know I’m irresistible, but aren’t you supposed to be--”

“Right here,” Dorian insisted, his hands lifting John’s hips and then John was gasping hard, chuckling and groaning and fuck yeah. Fuck yeah, Dorian was sliding back in. In and in and deep.

“Oh. Oh, my God,” John groaned, wiggling around and shoving the pillow under his chest. Levering his ass up for more.

Dorian leaned over him. “Sorry, John.” But he didn’t sound all that damn sorry. “I told myself I wasn’t going to make you sore this time.”

“Forget that,” John bit out around a moan. “If I can’t feel it later, then it doesn’t count.”

Dorian pulled almost all the way out, shocking the breath from John’s lungs, and then plunged back in, making John burn and scramble at the sheets for a grip that would keep him from flying out of his own skin. A tiny, mewling plea eked out into the quiet of the night.

So Dorian did it again. And again. And again until John wasn’t even aware of the sounds he was making. Didn’t know, didn’t care. He could barely hear the words Dorian breathed out, but his skin flushed with the praise. And here, in the darkness, with Dorian rolling into him like a landslide, over and over, John felt beautiful. Whole. Wanted.

God, so fucking good.

And then a strong arm wrapped around John’s hips, tucking him in tight against the cradle of Dorian’s pelvic thrusts, arching John’s back and that angle -- that incredible fucking angle -- and he was smearing a mess of excitement all over the bed sheets with every fleeting moment of friction against his cock and John had never wanted to come so badly in his life.

Bracing a forearm against the mattress, he angled the opposite shoulder down and his arm under him. The instant he grasped his aching erection, Dorian adjusted his angle to perfection. Absolute. Mind-blowing. Perfection.

John was blasted open. Pulsing with intensity as Dorian pushed-pushed-pushed and pushed him for more-more-more until John had nothing left. Nothing at all. “Ah-ah, hnng. Ah…” That was the sum total of his brain capacity as Dorian’s glow flickered and flashed in the windows.

Just like Christmas. John laughed, forehead pressed to the mattress.

“Now,” Dorian said hotly against John’s nape, “I will go charge.”

John just hummed in agreement as Dorian withdrew very slowly, kissing his way down John’s spine. It belatedly occurred to John that he’d regret it if he fell asleep draped over a pillow wedged under his stomach. So he’d better deal with it. Roll over or toss it aside or… something. Yeah, he’d do that. In just a minute. In just…

Two hours later, when Dorian woke him with a cup of coffee and fingers furrowing through his hair, John twitched, winced, and remembered.

God damn it. Sex was evil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hernandez was mentioned in Unbound (at Bar Luxon). I named her Mariandra and gave her the rank of sergeant.


	21. DRNs in the City

“Just drop me off at my apartment, man,” Dorian instructed.

It was raining. Kind of. More like misting. The cruiser’s windshield wipers lazily swished back and forth twice before John checked, “You sure?”

“There’s city shuttle tram service just down the block from the building.”

“Yeah. A real selling point.” Access to public transportation -- good, great. But that wasn’t why John had asked. Sure, only a worthless asshole would make his fiancé go out in this cold, dreary, wet weather, but there was another thing to consider: “What I mean is -- you’re still kinda high profile right now, D.”

“The city needs to get used to seeing DRNs around. Going about our lives like everyone else.”

It still wasn’t sitting well with John. Too risky.

“John. I can take care of myself. You’ve gotta trust me.”

“I trust you,” John insisted. John trusted Dorian totally: it was the rest of city that John didn’t trust, and if a bunch of crazies ganged up on a lone DRN… well. It would end badly.

But when the turn for Dorian’s building came up, John tamped down his reservations and tapped on the winker. Dorian’s hand squeezed his thigh. Before he could say something inanely unnecessary (like, “Thank you”), John ordered, “Stay safe today, D.”

“I’ll see you at the Wall.”

Yup. The Wall. 1400. For welcome wagon duty. On his day off. Yippee. “I can hardly wait.”

Dorian gave him a knowing smirk before he shut the passenger door and headed for the entrance of the building. John didn’t roll down the window and heckle -- _****Hey, the tram boarding stop is in the other direction, genius!**** _\-- because Dorian would have just shot back with something like: _****I’m just going to make sure my place is presentable -- isn’t that what a good host would do, John?****_

But he didn’t heckle. He watched until Dorian got inside the building, and then John made himself drive away. Back home. Back to bed. He snuggled into a fresh set of bed linen and closed his eyes.

And woke to the scent of just-brewed coffee. Dorian must have set the timer for him. John squeezed open an eye. Glared toward the nightstand. The bedside clock insisted it was nine a.m. and John decided he’d regret it if he didn’t take it at face value.

So he got up. Showered. Caffeinated. Checked his messages. Luckily, the world wasn’t coming to an end at that precise moment, so he got ready to go to the gym.

The pilates instructor remembered him, and John tried not to grin too widely whenever one of the exercises coaxed a twinge from his overused muscles but damn. Last night had been _****hot.****_

John went back to the Indian restaurant for a healthy lunch and then started thinking about resigning himself to getting ready for the hullabaloo at the Wall. If the convoy stayed on schedule, the party would be starting in just over an hour. John figured he should at least try to look like a detective for the occasion.

Whether he did or not was open to debate. But what else was new. At least black was slimming. And a color favored by the Grim Reaper, so John had that going for him.

John had made sure to invite himself to this little pow wow yesterday, so the guard waved him through after scrutinizing his ID and badge and making a single phone call. All in all, it didn’t get much smoother than that.

“One more unit of uniformed officers,” John warned the man, “should be arriving soon.” John was early. In full-out Boss Mode. Boy was he going to be happy when Maldonado came back. Probably the rest of the bullpen would be, too, come to think of it.

“Detective Kennex.”

John turned and held his hand out. “Captain Cocolle.”

“Good to see you still on the job.”

John couldn’t argue his luck. When he’d come over the Wall without approval a couple of weeks ago, he’d cut it awfully close. And then he’d made it worse by skedaddling back. The “miscommunication” between John and his captain was ridiculous to the point where either he looked like an idiot or Sandra incompetent. “I guess Maldonado thinks I’m still good for something.”

Cocolle’s iron-gray brows slid up toward his hairline. “Not sure that’s something to brag about.”

“You and me both.”

“How’s Morris doing over there?”

John gratefully sidled toward the change of topic, using a whole lotta words to say a whole lotta nothing. Cocolle had access to her reports, so he knew how she was doing. Probably better than John did at this point since he’d dumped the whole shebang in Paul’s lap. The captain’s question was more a signal that John was off the hook than a sign of genuine curiosity about the team’s progress.

They had lapsed into companionable silence when a car pulled up a few minutes later. Hernandez and Dorian got out and John stepped aside for Cocolle to greet them. He was particularly chatty with Dorian, but who wasn’t. Dorian was the man of the hour for -- John checked his watch -- nine more minutes. At which time, it’d be Forney’s show.

John scowled because, as happy as he’d be for Dorian to be under a little less public scrutiny, he was even more apprehensive about the next phase of Samantha’s campaign. Hell, with exposure like this for the 494 Movement, she might just be dreaming dreams of political office. Ambition had the nasty habit of convincing people that it was OK to sacrifice all sorts of things for the sake of success. Things and other people, too. The last thing John wanted was for the DRNs to end up as a footnote in next year’s robotics textbooks.

At that moment, the lights on either side of the massive gate flashed a warning. The strobe of yellow; the approach of the convoy.

Cocolle gave approval for the doors to be unbolted and John listened as they cranked and clicked open slowly. Slowly. Slowly. Finally a line of military jeeps and a single covered truck were able to pass through.

They did and pulled over to the waiting zone. Cocolle’s watch command immediately moved in to surround the vehicles, weapons armed and aimed, ready for war. As the blast doors at the gate inched shut, more men and women in tactical gear stood at attention on its threshold, blast rifles raised, pointing into the desolate territory beyond.

John’s hand was on his sidearm and he had no plans to move it until they got the all clear.

But they did get it. Without incident. As weapons were lowered and everyone breathed easier, the rear door to one of the Humvees swung open and a DRN leaped out. Followed by another. And another. John recognized them on sight.

“Goku,” he said, offering his hand to the first android.

“Kennex, man, it is good to see you again!”

“Detective Kennex -- on this side of the Wall, it’s Detective Kennex,” John corrected him. “You doing all right?”

“Can’t complain.”

Neither could Forney, who was next, or James, who was quietly bringing up the rear.

“Welcome back,” John said. “If nobody’s got any urgent issues here, Rudy’s expecting you. Routine maintenance checks.”

Forney in particular was visibly relieved to hear that. John couldn’t blame him. Hell, if John were in his shoes, he’d be dreading all sorts of surprises, like a compulsory memory wipe.

“Forney, James, Goku.” John gestured to his own cruiser. “Get in and buckle up. Sergeant Hernandez and Officer Dorian will be bringing up the rear.”

And off they went to Rudy’s lab. John kind of wanted to make a little song out of it. Maybe based on that old folk song _****“** **She'll be coming ‘round the mountain.”**** _ He made a mental note to come up with something appropriately obnoxious to annoy Dorian with later.

“Gentlemen!” Rudy hollered up from the ground floor after all six of them had tromped through the main doors of the lab. “Come in, come in. Make yourselves at home.”

Yeah, John could see that they’d be here for a while. Russell was sitting up on The Table, a glowing cable pulsing from the port in the back of his skull.

“Russell,” Forney warmly greeted. “Good to see you up and awake.”

“Yeah, listen, man. I’m real sorry about that seriously sick business back at base. I had no idea--”

Goku patted his shoulder. “We figured.”

“I never would have hurt any of you guys,” Russell quietly insisted, and John figured that Rudy had already shared the gory details. Some of them anyway.

“You told him about Bob?” John said to the scientist as Dorian moved in to give everyone an update on the day’s itinerary. John already had a copy on his phone that he wished he could ignore.

“Well. Someone had to,” Rudy answered. “When he started asking questions, I told him that Bob was the first and only victim. We were able to sort out everyone else with no further harm done.”

Ah, so Rudy hadn’t mentioned how Vaughn’s little nudge had contributed to that whole mess. Given how much that whole vengeance thing had freaked Dorian out, maybe that was for the best. Especially if it wasn’t a threat anymore.

John approved.

“You’ve got my contact information if you need anything,” Dorian was saying, “and I’ve transferred five hundred dollars onto these bitcoin sticks. For emergencies.”

John’s brows hiked up toward the stained glass ceiling at his lover’s blatant generosity. If he was planning on doing that for every DRN that rejoined the city populace, he’d be real broke, real fast.

“Don’t worry about paying me back; pay it forward to the guys who come after you.”

Ah, that made more sense. John tried to ignore the fact that it was his money -- a large chunk of the intern’s salary that he’d given Dorian last December -- that was funding the DRN show. Just in case he decided this was the kind of thing that could end a detective’s career, John would rather not know it.

“As for what comes next,” Dorian continued and John appreciated the fact that he made the effort to speak out loud, “James, you’ve got a meeting with your former boss tomorrow at ten a.m. And Goku, there’s a flower shop owned by a friend of mine who could use some part-time help if you’re good with that? Starting tomorrow? But first, you’ll all be meeting with Samantha Rubin.”

“That’s our next stop,” John interjected with a measurable lack of enthusiasm.

Which Dorian ignored. “Right. You guys are welcome to stay at my place if--”

“Er, actually, Dorian,” Rudy interrupted, “Miss Rubin has sufficient room. And more than enough chargers.”

“Chargers?” Dorian beamed. “The first batch is ready?”

“The first batch?” John repeated.

“Yes. Um, I’m afraid I’ve been remiss in keeping you in the loop, John. I sent the schematics for my prototype DRN charger off for manufacturing. The first six were delivered the day before yesterday. Miss Rubin has offered to house and power them in the attic space above her garage.” He assured the other DRNs, “I’ve seen it. It’s quite roomy.”

Hell, even James looked excited about that.

So, that took care of the issue of lodgings and charging... but John wasn’t sold on the benefits of everyone bunking together and enjoying the hospitality of someone who had an agenda. But it wasn’t like they had much choice; all these guys still had to run the same gauntlet that Dorian had powered through: tax and citizen registration, a driver’s license, and a roof over their heads.

“Wonderful,” John opined. “Samantha can chauffeur you guys around town. So let’s get through Rudy’s checklist.” He waved his hands at the assortment of equipment, hoping to focus everyone.

“You’re such a party pooper,” Dorian accused following two industrious minutes of android shuffling. He spoke in a quiet aside as Hernandez monitored the radio and Rudy gave everyone a rundown of all the systems he’d be checking and restarting. God, this was taking forever.

Dorian scolded, “Let them have this. It’s exciting.”

John grunted, hands on his hips. “Exciting, yes. Rainbows and puppies? Not even remotely.”

Dorian squinted at him. “Are you being Detective Kennex or Dad Kennex right now?”

“What the--what?”

“A father’s job. You remember when I asked you about that?”

John remembered coughing out something about how a father should prepare his kids for the future, teach them how to live their own lives. “Yeah…”

“How is that any different from what you’re doing right now, man?”

Damn it. Sometimes -- occasionally, actually very rarely -- John forgot how Dorian could see through him. Infinitesimally infrequent times… like now. He retaliated: “So that makes you Mother Dorian? Sunshine and apron strings?”

Dorian shook his head on a smile that was equal parts amazed and disbelieving. “Nice, John. It takes a lot of snark to be you.”

It did. Years’ worth.

Rudy was finished in under an hour, at which point, John sighed. It was time to call ahead and let Samantha know they were on their way.

He dug his phone out of his pocket and flicked the screen active.

This was it. John’s day was about to explode. He knew it and he knew there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do to stop it. Not unless he passed the entire show on to someone else. But John wouldn’t trust them, whoever it was. And John wanted to see what was happening on the front lines for himself.

Resigned, John dialed the number. He didn’t bother to smile. If Samantha could hear his scowl across the line, all the better.


	22. Housewarming

A soiree. Samantha Rubin had arranged a damned ball complete with press drones and black tie tuxedos. For all four DRNs.

“You warned them,” John not-quite asked Dorian.

“I did,” Dorian agreed with gratifying wariness. He’d told the other DRNs that while Samantha was happy to help them out, she was probably even happier to be helping her own career. “But it’s hard to resist this kind of attention,” Dorian observed, “and acceptance.”

But was it? Was it really acceptance? Or were DRNs just another novelty to be flashed around and then tossed out with last season’s trends?

“You seem to be resisting just fine.” John nodded over his shoulder to the wall that he and Dorian were stalwartly holding up in the hotel ballroom. There was music and dancing. Goku was the go-to guy for that. He could really cut a rug.

As androids didn’t eat, there was only a simple buffet table tucked along the far wall for anyone who’d skipped lunch. But basically everyone who was here -- moneyed and motivated and cheering for android rights -- was here to meet and talk to the community’s newest DRN members. Samantha had registered them at city hall. All four were officially employable citizens. The humans in the room buzzed around them like they’d never seen a potential taxpayer before.

“You’re not in the thick of all that,” John pointed out to Dorian. But his fiancé’s distance from the schmoozing probably had something to do with Dorian’s uniform. He was officially off duty, but he’d come directly from the precinct. Either the guests ignored him because he’d already declared his loyalties out loud and in blue **_**or**_** because they assumed he was busy keeping John from losing his shit all over their fancy pants party.

“Not now, no,” Dorian admitted, “but that welcome on the steps of precinct... that was incredible. I never would have asked for that.”

“And that’s the problem,” John complained. “You want it, you gotta ask. Demand. Don’t let anyone push you into the margins.”

“Man,” Dorian marveled with a frown. “You run hot and cold like no other human being I can remember meeting.”

“Hey. I want it all for you.” And, if possible, with none of the bullshit that got heaped onto human shoulders. “But I can’t risk getting all starry-eyed. I’ve got to be realistic.”

“Pessimistic.”

“Disappointment sucks and its sequels are even worse. Trust me.”

Dorian bumped his arm companionably. “It’s OK, John. I can hope enough for the both of us.”

Yeah. No argument there.

“But the surprise is kind of ruined for you.”

“What surprise?” John didn’t know why he asked. He knew he was walking right into something he would wish he hadn’t.

With a jaunty tilt to his head, Dorian mused, “What I’ll look like on my wedding day.”

John didn’t choke, but it was a near thing. He slugged Dorian’s arm. Playfully. “Don’t be an idiot. They don’t look anything like you.”

“John,” Dorian patiently replied.

“No.” Holding up a hand, John pressed his point: “Have I ever made a mistake? With DRN names?” Every time new androids had been sent with the supply convoys, John had spent the next three or four days constantly prefacing any communication with a confirmation of the DRN’s identity: “Yusef, right?” Or if he’d honestly had no idea: “Hey, what’s your name again?”

“You going to tell me your trade secret for that?”

“You have a hard time telling everyone apart? Hm.” John did his best to sound both amazed and patronizing.

“Come on, don’t be a jackass.”

“Well since you asked so nicely,” he drawled, “it’s in the body language. Expressions.” He swirled a hand in front of his own face. “Everybody’s got a different tell.”

“You know, you probably don’t hear this often, but you’re one sharp detective.”

John chuckled wryly. “What on earth would you do if there were two of me?”

“The obvious answer to that is: a threesome.”

Snorting, John pointed a finger in Dorian’s face. Aimed right at his expression of utter delight and perfect innocence. “Behave. Until we get home.”

“Is there an incentive attached with this request?”

It wasn’t a request. It was a baldfaced plea, but if Dorian was going to call it a request, John could work with that. “Yes,” he said. That and no more.

The more would happen later.

Amazingly, Dorian seemed satisfied. He turned back to the festivities with polite interest. “Gonna hold you to that.”

As if John would let him forget.

It took another two hours before things started winding down. John suspected that Dorian had used the public network to signal his fellow DRNs that it was time to go. The room had probably been booked until midnight, but Russell and James wandered over at five to ten to ask for a ride back to their chargers.

When John hesitated to abandon Forney and Goku, Dorian said, “I’m keeping an eye on them via uplink. It’s OK. We can go.”

Well. OK, then. But John was going to make damn sure that Dorian wasn’t in Over Share Mode before anything fun happened. By the time Russell and James were tucked in and John had taken a shower and eaten, it was nearly midnight.

“Forney and Goku are back at Samantha’s,” Dorian reported.

“Yeah? You logged out of the friends network?”

Dorian teased, “There’s no one watching you but me, John.”

So John slid over and angled in for a long, slow kiss.

“Is that what I get for being on my best behavior tonight?”

“That’s what you get for just being with me, D.” John tweaked his chin.

“What about my incentive?”

“I think we’re both going to need a full charge for that.”

And indeed they did.

* * *

Dorian had Wednesday and Thursday off. Wednesday was fully booked: Dorian had a date with The Table at Rudy’s and a procedure to replace his bent collar bone parts. The procedure took well over the minimum twenty hours. Dorian called him after eleven and John hadn’t even waited for him to ask for a ride.

“I’m on may way,” John had said, already scooping up the cruiser keys from the catchall. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

On Thursday, while John was stuck in the bullpen, Dorian was at his apartment. Doing whatever. It was all very hush-hush.

“It’s a surprise,” Dorian insisted when John asked what he was working on in the apartment that he never charged in.

“I don’t like surprises.”

“I have evidence to the contrary.” Dorian had tapped his own temple and winked. John had harrumphed and shut up.

He got intermittent updates on the other DRNs courtesy of Dorian: everyone had passed their driver’s exams; Goku was really winning over the customers (and the Hartmans) at Mid City Floral; James was back at the assisted living center with room and board factored in to his new employment agreement; Russell had signed up for a course in rehabilitation and physical therapy at a local community college (apparently, Samantha had finagled a grant for him that covered tuition); Forney was rock-starring it across the city, giving lectures at school assemblies and visiting kindergarten classes.

So far, so good. It was even mostly quiet in Delta Division. Well, as quiet as it ever got what with all the new and inventive ways people came up with to exploit and kill one another.

“I’m having a housewarming get-together at my place,” Dorian announced on Friday morning. John was off today, so he was getting this news as he drove Dorian over to the DRN’s apartment. At the aromatic ass-crack of dawn. But this was still better than the alternative: the one where John had a big bed all to himself all night long and a silent apartment to wake up to in the morning.

“A housewarming party, huh? Anything in particular you’d like to get? From your guests, I mean. Now’s your chance to make a request.” In a mumble, John added, “Before you end up with chess piece bookends.”

“I like those,” Dorian defended, which shocked the hell out of John. He’d never once caught Dorian admiring the knick-knacks on his shelves. “You don’t like those?”

John didn’t like dusting them, that’s what he didn’t like. “They’re all yours. What else?”

“I don’t need anything. Really.”

“Well, too bad. You’ll be getting something. Really. That is how a housewarming works.”

“Oh.”

It was way too early to be this amused, but John just could not help himself. He giggled.

And then Dorian took horrible, horrible revenge on him for it: “What do you think the apartment needs? Why don’t you tell them to get me that?”

“Dude. I haven’t even been in your apartment since I gave you _****my**** _housewarming gift.”

“Most of the new additions are in the bedroom.”

“Uh-huh. So you don’t need any beaded curtains or lava lamps.”

A blue web of light flashed across Dorian’s cheek as he looked up both first-apartment staple items. “Those seem interesting. Perhaps a mirror ball as well.”

OK, now he was just being facetious. Well, John could play, too. “Dorian’s disco,” he mocked.

“Hm. Very exclusive. Members only.”

“Oh, just--stop it.” John needed more coffee if this was getting witty. A lot more coffee. Moot point what with the Fisk building coming into view. He braked to a halt at the front door and rubbed his palm along Dorian’s thigh. “Stay safe today. Are you sure you don’t want me to give you a ride in to the--”

“John. This isn’t the first time I’ve taken the shuttle tram to and from work.”

And it wasn’t the first time John had dropped Dorian off and picked him up here. He still didn’t like how vulnerable Dorian was on public transportation.

“I’ll be fine.” Dorian levered the passenger door open. “I’ll call you at end of shift.”

“Hey, wait! When’s the party, anyway?”

“You think you’re invited?”

“I’d better be or we’re going to have to reexamine our definitions of ‘significant other.’”

Dorian beamed and fuck all if it wasn’t adorable. At six-twenty in the morning. “Sunday evening.”

Sunday. The day before Sandra would be back and John could hand off the torment that was her job right back to her. Not that he needed another reason to celebrate, but yeah. He’d take it.

In the meantime, he took calls from Val and Rudy, who both asked what they should get Dorian for the occasion. John recommended a beaded curtain and lava lamp, respectively.

Nobody brought a beaded curtain or a lava lamp. Not even John, although he’d been tempted. In the end, he selfishly decided not to foist that crap on Dorian just in case it migrated to John’s place someday. Just--no way. No way was John dealing with more kitsch. Unless he absolutely had to.

By the time John arrived (fashionably late) with fried crab cheese dumplings, calamari, sweet and sour sauce, and jasmine tea for the humans, and a brand new, unopened pack of UNO cards for whoever Dorian wanted to play them with, the festivities were underway.

There wasn’t much space what with five DRNs and five humans crammed into the tiny 2-room apartment, but at least nobody would have to shout to be heard.

“Hey, John. You made it after all,” Val smiled, reaching for a be-ribboned bottle of sparkling cider on Dorian’s only table. It was more of a short bar. The stools were fold-able. A good call for an apartment whose resident wound never need to sit down.

“We were beginning to worry that you wouldn’t make it.” Rudy held out his hands for the bottle in order to do the honors. Someone -- probably Val -- had brought a dozen plastic champagne flutes, which were clustered next to a holo gameboard.

James, Richard, and Sandra were in the middle of a three-player version of Othello. Forney was admiring Dorian’s wall art. Goku and Russell were just setting their gifts down near the bedroom door. There was some kind of large, broad-leaf houseplant from the guy who worked at a florist’s and a bath set complete with a fluffy green loofa from the guy who wanted to be a physical therapist.

“Hey!” John objected. “The best places don’t deliver.” He held up the takeout bag as evidence. He was late for reasons, damn it.

“Smells fantastic, John,” Sandra approved. She took the drink that Valerie passed over and John warned, “I don’t care how hungover you are tomorrow morning. You’re coming in or I’m issuing an arrest warrant.”

Richard snorted. “The big chair just a little to much for you to handle?”

With an opening like that, how could John resist a short joke. Really. It was asking too much. But Dorian wouldn’t like it if he and Paul got all wound up and this was Dorian’s party. “At least I didn’t have an MX breathing down my neck for the last two weeks.”

“MXs don’t breathe,” James very helpfully pointed out.

Russell contributed, “They kind of glare, though. Not fun.”

John slapped the deck of UNO cards in Dorian’s hand. “Here. This is fun.”

Dorian’s smile was all kinds of adorable because, yeah, John was behaving himself. Just for him. “Thanks, John.”

“Yeah, thanks for nothing,” Paul joked. “How is that a housewarming gift?”

“It’s a party gift,” Dorian argued just as John jibed, “Oh? What’d you bring? Something classy, like a stripper?”

“Hey. My gift was the classiest. Tell ‘em, Dorian.”

John prompted Dorian with an expectant look. “Richard gave me a year’s membership to all the museums in the city.”

Wow. That was kind of impressive. He turned toward the captain, “That has you written all over it.”

She smirked and Paul sputtered, scooping up his glass. Everyone got some low-alcohol bubbly, even the androids.

“You had this before?” John asked Dorian, indicating the cider while they were all waiting for Rudy to finish pouring the last glass.

“No, but I’ve had tonic mineral water. The bubbles feel nice.”

“Do they now.” How interesting. This opened up a whole new range of fun things to try.

“A toast!” Rudy declared, lifting his glass. “To our friend Dorian and his brave and bold adventure in a new world.”

“Good toast, Rudy,” Sandra said, leaning over to clink Dorian’s glass and John had to admit he was impressed with the guy’s eloquence. Val must have made him rehearse in the car on the way over.

“I’ll drink to that,” Paul declared and, amazingly enough, John was in complete agreement.


	23. Drunk and Disorderly

As it turned out, John wasn’t the last to arrive for Dorian’s housewarming.

About forty minutes later, Jeannie and Michael showed up with a vegetarian pizza from a place John respected quite highly. Plus they toted the requisite floral arrangement. Then, Maya Vaughn brought organic fruit juice and a plant stand. Solid evidence that she and Goku had been in cahoots. The only person missing was Nico Galasso, and if that little shit turned up, they’d have themselves a piñata. 

“Is this everybody?” John checked as elbows started rubbing and gestures started becoming dangerous. Good thing nobody was at risk of having an eye poked out with a plastic champagne flute. Probably.

“Jake probably would have come,” Val said, leaning into their conversation because in a space this small it was pretty much open season on other people’s business.

Dorian cringed a bit. “I assumed he’d feel obligated.”

“Samantha would have loved to be here,” Forney shared. “But I didn’t say anything.”

“I appreciate that.”

And so did John. Dorian was a cop-in-training. A little distance was a good idea.

Dorian asked Forney, “Did you do any public speaking today?”

Public speaking, social network chat sessions, media interviews. Forney was the propeller, generating a new wave that was rippling through the whole country. From coast-to-coast.

Russell shuffled over and tapped Dorian’s arm. “Sorry, man, but I’ve got to get going. Low charge and I’ve got an 8 a.m. practical tomorrow.”

“No worries. Thanks for coming.” When Dorian reached out to take Russell’s empty glass, the other DRN fumbled it like his fingers were numb.

“Whoops. Sorry. Low charge.”

Low charge. For the first time, it sounded and awful lot like “drunk off my ass.” “You driving?” John asked.

“Naw. Last tram’ll be around in a few minutes.”

“I’m heading out, too,” James said, though his tram would be going in the opposite direction, toward the assisted living center. John figured he was also hoping to catch the last ride of the night.

Dorian saw them out, walking them down to the front door of the building. John found himself at loose ends, standing equal distance from three separate clusters of conversation.

Goku was saying to Sandra, “Wow, horseback riding! I’d love to give that a try.”

“I didn’t know you rode,” Paul blurted and John had to roll his eyes. Seriously?

As Sandra took a sip of cider, John butted in to accuse Paul, “Have you _****never****_ \-- not once? -- noticed the photos in the captain’s office? Sandra Maldonado with a horse at one o’clock. Ring any bells?”

“Shut it, Kennex. Nobody asked you to be part of this conversation.”

John ignored him and said to Sandra. “So, vacation with Lillith, huh?” See? He even knew the horse’s name. _****Suck on that lemon, Richard.****_ “Back to Bainsworth Umali Park?”

She nodded. “It still has the best trails and cabins.”

And reliable network service and charging ports for personal devices. Even way out in the middle of Nature’s backyard.

Before John could say something inappropriate about how Sandra just had to have her hands on the reins even while on vacation, Paul joked, “Well that explains the lack of souvenirs.”

Sandra idly offered, “Keep talking, Richard, and you’ll find a nice, big bag of road apples on your chair tomorrow.”

Goku loved that -- he guffawed hard enough to stumble, bumping into Dorian’s photo display and the whole setup rippled briefly.

Smiling, Paul put out a hand to steady the android. “Watch it, there, buddy. Don’t want to mess up Dorian’s masterpiece.” He nodded toward the photo nearest the DRN’s shoulder. “What’s more gorgeous than a cup of coffee, eh?”

John shuddered. “I’m leaving before I end up agreeing with that.”

Spinning on his heel, John made a beeline for Rudy, who was attempting to relate an anecdote to his girlfriend, but was laughing too hard in between each word for John to really catch on to what he was saying. John eased himself into chatting range as Valerie giggled at the punchline, which John had missed.

Rudy, sensing the addition to his audience, segued, “John, did I ever tell you about the mail order bride debacle?”

Briefly, John wondered if he would have been better off subjecting himself to the medium psychic. She was waving her hands over Michael Costa, presumably reading his aura. Jeannie looked skeptical but tolerant and Forney intensely curious.

“Sounds great. Hey, Rudy,” John interrupted before the man could get going. It was now or never. “That cider -- DRNs don’t get drunk, do they?”

Rudy sputtered a gusty laugh. “Of course not. Although they don’t have to eat or drink,” Rudy lectured, “DRNs do consume small amounts of water for lubrication -- saliva and such. Enables speech and enunciation, plus the occasional waste disposal after--”

“Yeah. Great.” _****Not****_ great. Because John didn’t want to know about Dorian’s waste disposal routine. Hell, John didn’t even want to know about his _****own****_ waste disposal routine. “But I’ve seen two klutzy androids in the last ten minutes.”

“Klutzy?” Valerie queried, a frown pinching her brows.

John described Russell nearly dropping his empty glass and Goku’s almost-topple against the wall.

“That’s… not normal,” Rudy assessed, eyeing the DRNs critically.

At this precise moment, Dorian came back. His smile was forced.

“Something wrong?” John prompted, angling himself so Dorian could join their gathering. Dorian crowded in next to him.

“James had to walk Russell to the tram platform.”

A DRN that unsteady… now that was worrying. “You keeping an eye on him?”

Dorian nodded. “He agreed to an uplink. I can prompt him when to get on and get off the shuttle.” He looked at Rudy. “This is very strange.”

“How are _****you**** _feeling?” John needed to know, cutting across Rudy’s indrawn breath.

“I’m fine.”

“It looks like whatever Russell’s got, Goku does, too,” Val murmured as the android just about tripped over his own feet, flailing an arm wide.

Rudy marveled. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Val wondered aloud, “Are we looking at another--”

“John.” Dorian’s hand clamped down, sudden and hard, on John’s arm. “James and Goku. There’s an assault in progress.”

John was still wearing his sidearm under his jacket. “Let’s go.”

Dorian bolted for the door, disco lights flashing across his cheekbone. John grabbed for his phone and connected with dispatch, panting out a request for backup as he thundered down the stairs. It was after nine o’clock at night and Mrs. Fisk would surely complain about the racket, but Dorian was like a speeding bullet, slamming out of the building entrance and racing across the loading zone.

He zoomed down the street and then disappeared around the corner.

_****Bang!** ** _

A single gunshot.

John put on a burst of speed and just about tripped -- the 20% increase in push-off from his prosthetic leg was jamming up his stride. His left leg couldn’t keep up. Damn it.

By the time he made it around the corner, Dorian was a blur dodging down a suspicious alley. John jumped in after him.

Just in time to crack his fist across the face of guy in a ski mask who was clutching an expensive leather wallet to his chest. The perp was in motion, making a break for it, and his momentum slammed all the way up John’s arm and into his shoulder socket, but the guy went down. Like a pile of rocks.

Not two meters away, Dorian had a second suspect in an unbreakable hold.

James was shakily trying to assist the intended victim up off of the pile of garbage that he’d been tossed face-down on. “You need medical assistance, sir?” the DRN asked in a firm tone that he probably used with cantankerous residents at work.

“Ah, no. I don’t--I don’t think so.” He patted himself down and when his hand brushed over his pockets, he numbly muttered, “My wallet.”

John picked it up, flipped it open and -- yup, the photo on the ID matched. More or less. A polite smile versus peaky with shock. But with the aid of his penlight, John could see the resemblance. “Here you are.” John handed it over.

“I’m Detective John Kennex. This is Officer Dorian. The incident has been called in. You might want to consider whether or not you’ll be pressing charges.” Hopefully, the issue would give him something to focus on and maybe pull him back from the ledge of shock that he was precariously balanced on.

“John,” Dorian said quietly. “I’m calling Rudy out here.”

Glancing toward James, who was bracing himself upright on the filthy wall with an arm wrapped around his middle, and Russell, who was sprawled on the even filthier ground with sparks of blue electricity sputtering across torn skin, John nodded. “I hear sirens.”

An MX assigned to traffic duty pulled up on his motorbike first. He tromped over and took Dorian’s perp into custody. Just as he snapped the handcuffs on, a patrol car flashed its lights. An officer from the local district got out and directed her MX to put John’s suspect in the back of the car.

The victim was still giving his statement to the patrolwoman when Val and Rudy popped up from around the corner. “What’s happened?” he demanded and John gestured him toward Dorian, Russell, and James.

Though John hovered near the on-duty officer, he kept an ear trained on James’ explanation:

“I walked Russell to the tram platform. Just as we arrived, we heard a scuffle down here. We thought someone could be in trouble. So we called Dorian, but it sounded bad. We went to help.” James shook his head. “One of them had a gun. Shot me.” He glanced down to the hand he was pressing against his side. “The other one had a knife and… something else.”

John didn’t mention the metal pipe lying next to the garbage pile. Not even when the wash from Rudy’s penlight illuminated it.

James informed Rudy, “We should have been able to handle them. But I was too slow and Russell didn’t even get a punch in.” He looked to Dorian. “I don’t understand.”

“We’ll figure this out,” Dorian promised, placing a hand on James’ shoulder.

Rudy straightened up from where he’d crouched over Russell. “Let’s get you both back to the lab. I haven’t any tools on me.”

“I’ll bring the car around,” Val offered and John updated the responding officer on where the DRNs who’d been involved would be heading.

She noted the damage to them with a quick, sharp glance. “Understood. I’ll need their statements.”

“I’ll get them to you. I can give you mine right now. Officer Dorian will be in touch with his.”

“Go ahead, Detective.”

There wasn’t much to say, so John was done by the time Valerie pulled up. He and Dorian helped haul Russell into the backseat. James got in beside him to brace him up. The injured android still hadn’t come back online fully.

“What’s wrong with him?” John wanted to know. He’d seen Dorian take more abuse than this -- bullets and robot fists and a whole, entire wall -- and get right back up again.

“I wish I knew,” Dorian said, despair crunching his brows tight.

John reached out and gripped his shoulder. “Like you said, we’ll figure this out.”

The sooner the better.


	24. Sabotage

John didn’t have to be the one to break up the party. He called Sandra and made her do it. Everyone was ready to be out the door by the time he and Dorian got back.

As Dorian thanked Maya, Jeannie, and Michael for coming, Sandra and Paul finished packing up the used glasses and takeout garbage.

Seeing Goku and Forney both frowning with concern, John nodded them out the door. “C’mon. We’re going to Rudy’s lab. All of us. Together.”

“John,” Sandra said. “I need you to come in tomorrow. Bring me up to speed before roll call.”

“Yeah, I’ll be there.” Which meant he wouldn’t be able to help Dorian if a line of investigation needed looking into.

But then Paul said to Dorian, “Let me know if I can help.”

“Thanks, man.”

Dorian was the last one out the door, hanging back in order to lock up. This pretty much guaranteed that he’d be the last one to get in the cruiser. That was how John found himself alone with Forney and Goku crowded together in the backseat for an unforgivably long ninety seconds. During which, Forney observed, “You’re worried about us.”

“I’m not worried. I’m in a bad mood. Felonies have that effect on me.”

“No, I think you’re worried,” Goku insisted. “You saw me lose my balance earlier. After that, you asked Rudy if DRNs could get drunk.”

Nothing was wrong with this android’s hearing, apparently.

“Drunk?” Forney wrinkled his nose.

“Yes, drunk,” John admitted, biting off the word like he was decapitating a--a--a _****something.**** _ “I know it was a dumb question -- because no one’s ever tried to melt your hardware with a virus that makes you guys look crazy.” Sarcasm. One of John’s favorite outlets for frustration. Always a steady fallback guy when John was too tired for snappy one-liners.

The passenger side door opened. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Not as sorry as I am,” John muttered. He pulled out onto the street before Dorian finished buckling in. He then proceeded to pretend that he couldn’t hear Forney and Goku demanded all the gory details from the assault. For his part, John was just plain pissed off. Who the hell walked by dark, cluttered alleyways after nine at night in this city? What were they teaching kids in school these days: look, listen, lobotomy? For fuck’s sake.

Rudy already had James on The Table by the time they got there. He was hunched down, digging into James’ bullet hole with a pair of forceps, eyes bugging and bulging in the magnifying lenses of his goggles.

Val waved them over to where she was perched on a low-set computer chair beside a cargo trolley. Russell was on the trolley and Val had a hand resting on the DRN’s shoulder. The android was still out of it. Or was he? His eyes weren’t black, so he was powered on, just paralyzed.

“I asked Rudy to look at James first. So he can give his statement as soon as possible.”

John nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Any response from Russell?”

“No, nothing,” she sighed with a shake of her head. “But I get the feeling that he’s tracking.”

Yeah, John was feeling particularly watched, as well. “No idea why he’s out of commission the way he is?”

Val hitched her shoulders in a hopeless shrug. “Rudy hasn’t really had a chance to take a look at him.”

“Will do, though! Just--a--moment,” Rudy breathed, carefully rocking the forceps back and forth within the wound. “I think--I’ve--got it.”

He pulled back and stood. Sure enough, there was a .38 slug in the soft, rubber grip of the forceps. Valerie held out an evidence back. Rudy dropped the bullet in and she sealed it personally with her own thumbprint, a wordless promise to guarantee the chain of custody.

“How’s it look, Rudy?” James asked, holding his shirt up and out of the way as Rudy passed a hand-held scanner over the site.

“Um. Right, I don’t see any indication that primary tendons have been damaged. Most of this appears to be cosmetic. Your nanobots should be able to--oh. Bugger.”

“What?” James demanded tersely and everyone else held their breath.

“A cracked servo, I’m afraid.” Rudy reached for a much more powerful scanner, rolling both it and its stand over to center it above the wound. Bright lights blinked on, aimed at James’ purple-smeared side and a series of soft pulses sounded. Rudy didn’t even have to tell James to hold still. It was like the android had forgotten to breathe or fidget entirely.

Almost immediately, a detailed picture flickered, flashed, and held on the nearest monitor. With a tablet in hand, Rudy started shucking aside layers of synthetic tissue scans until he reached the damaged site.

John scoured the image with a scowl. “I don’t see a crack.”

“Neither do I,” Val agreed. Glancing over her shoulder, she asked, “Rudy, are you sure?”

“Positive. It’s there, just not here.” As if that made sense. “This is a few millimeters off, so that’s not what we’re seeing here.”

“Well, what are we seeing here?” John snarked.

Dorian answered, tone low and grave, “Something worse.”

“Dorian’s right, I’m afraid. This hardware has been overheated.” Rudy tapped his tablet screen, zooming in even tighter. “Fried, if you will.”

“From a bullet?” Even as John said it, he was ready to argue against it. Just--no way. That made zero sense.

“No. No, a bullet wouldn’t do this. Not even an EMP would do this. Maybe, a million EMPs over the course of days…” Rudy’s voice faded as he followed the scorched and brittle edges left and right, up and down. Then he nudged the scanner an inch over. And another inch. And another. “It’s systemic.”

“No EMP could do this,” Dorian realized.

Val shifted on her feet and, turning toward Rudy, said, “If not an EMP, then what about another energy source. Like a charger?”

A charger.

Rudy went perfectly still. Dorian swallowed visibly, and John’s jaw locked tight.

“A charger?” Goku whispered, horrified and lock-limbed.

Forney simply stared straight ahead. Just like Russell.

Who Rudy examined next, spinning the scanner around and hovering it over the prone android. A fair bit of adjustment was needed to the height of both the trolley and the diagnostic device before the resolution cleared up enough for John to see--

“This is worse.” So much worse. Even to John’s untrained eye, he knew something was very wrong. He gestured Forney over. “Check him, too.”

Rudy did. He scanned Goku as well. Both of them filled the monitor with sickly-looking robot bits. As Dorian moved forward to take his turn, John’s guts clenched, knotted, and twisted. Oh, God. If this was the issue that had wrecked Goku’s balance and incapacitated Russell to the point where he hadn’t even gotten a punch in against a human assailant, then there was no way Dorian could report in for duty tomorrow. And as acting captain of Delta Division, it would be on John to make that call.

Son of a bitch.

John licked his lips and forced his tired eyes to focus on Dorian’s scan. He searched high and low, top to bottom.

Val said it first: “I can’t find anything that stands out.”

Dorian’s hand reached out to John’s. Grasped and squeezed. “That’s because I’m not suffering the same damage. I’m fine.”

John let out a long, stale breath. “OK. You’re OK, so that means your charger is OK. If this is a charger issue.” He swung around and interrogated the others, “Goku, Forney, which chargers have you been using?”

“The ones at Miss Rubin’s house.”

“James?” Rudy checked.

The android shook his head. “I only charged there that first night.”

“Which is why the damage isn’t as bad.”

But the real question was whether it was repairable. Could nanobots even fix this kind of--

“John,” Rudy urged, “we need to get our hands on those chargers. Whether they’re the problem or not, I have to look them over. Rule them out.”

“Right. You guys gonna be OK here if D and I head over to Samantha’s?”

James frowned. “As OK as we will be anywhere at this point.”

Goku winced. “Dude. Work on the sugarcoating, will you?”

“Can I come with you?” Forney asked.

Dorian firmly refused. “Stay with Rudy. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

John turned toward the metal stairs and then paused, thinking to ask: “Rudy, you want all six chargers?”

“Yes. Call forensics to go over the scene. Log everything as evidence. Down to the last mote of dust. If someone found a way to tamper with those devices, I mean, it’s unlikely it happened right there on-site, but…”

Val nodded, solemn and apprehensive. “We’ll need a chain of custody to fully prosecute.”

“I’ll make sure we have it,” John vowed. Rubbing Dorian’s back, he coaxed, “Let’s go, D. The sooner we get those chargers, the sooner we get some answers.”

Dorian waited until they were in the cruiser and zooming through the dark streets toward Samantha’s suburban neighborhood, before he let loose:

“Whoever’s behind this -- they’re going to blame it on Rudy, aren’t they?”

Ah, that incredible DRN intuition -- hard at work.

“Yeah,” John concurred with a glance at Dorian’s lethal fists. “If this goes to court, Rudy’s designs are going to be on trial.”

“There’s no way he made a mistake. And--” Dorian added before John could force himself to play Devil’s advocate, “--there’s no way he did this intentionally.”

“Then why didn’t he catch it? He must have tested those chargers when they arrived.”

“He did. I already checked the logs archived at the lab. The initial diagnostics came back clean.”

“OK, OK.” Since John didn’t know the jargon he’d need for arguing the point further, he suggested, “Sabotage, then?”

“Not since their activation. The chargers upload data directly to the computer at Rudy’s lab every time a DRN charges. Every time maintenance is performed. Everything is meticulously recorded in real time. There’s even a GPS tracker. It’s tied in with motion sensors and levels to detect substandard positioning of the charger itself.”

So there would be evidence of it being turned on, reprogrammed, taken apart, or switched out with a duplicate. John was getting low on ideas. “So that leaves what. The delivery company or the factory.”

“The factory,” Dorian confirmed. “There’s a record every time those shipment containers are unsealed. Besides, this kind of thing -- it would take too long to implement. This isn’t just a virus that can be uploaded and sent on its way with an executable file.”

An executable file. John did know what that was. His death grip loosened on the steering wheel. A fraction. “You’re sure?” he double-checked because Dorian was John’s go-to guy for robotics and John knew better than to be more confident than the expert.

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

Pretty sure. Great. But it clued John in to the danger of betting the house on it. Still, a working theory was better than flailing around like an octopus out of water.

“OK, so we’re going with that. We just need the chargers in order to prove tampering at the manufacturing site.” Mission: accepted.

But Dorian didn’t relax. He sat stock still in the passenger seat, glaring out past the windshield. Were this any other case, John would have reached over and smacked his shoulder. _****“We’ve got this,”**** _John would have teased and reaffirmed.

But it would have been a lie. The people out to destroy the DRNs -- or at least make it impossible for them to build lives for themselves free from daily government regulation and compulsory service -- had been one step ahead of Rudy. In fact, it could be argued that they’d planned for this exact contingency: they’d never intended for DRNs to buy refurbished chargers on monthly payment plans; the DRNs would all have ended up buying Rudy’s poisoned replacements and cooked their own hardware to gloo.

And if the DRNs’ enemies were anticipating this many steps ahead, then how could John be sure that the game wasn’t fixed? The refs bought out. The field booby-trapped.

Had the final score flashed on the board before they’d even set foot on the turf?

John’s hands ached; he was back to strangling the steering wheel. He should try to calm down; Dorian could sense his tension.

But he didn’t ask. Maybe because Dorian had come to roughly the same conclusion as John. The same tongue-tying, chest-imploding possibility that they’d never even had a chance.

It would occur to John later that he probably should have used the lights and siren. And then, on the heels of that thought, John would realize that even if he had, it wouldn’t have made a difference.

He turned onto Samantha’s road and entered a world of red, strobing lights and gushing, fire-retardant foam. No less than three fire trucks were angled toward Samantha’s house, robotic hoses pumping and sputtering, battling the roaring inferno that had engulfed the garage.

The garage, where all of Rudy’s chargers had been set up, snarled flame and belched smoke up toward the full moon hanging in the night sky.

John slammed his hand against the wheel, choking on his own rage.

The enemy had gotten here first.


	25. John's Plan

The chargers were gone. Charred and then soaked with bio-degradable slime. Even beyond the perimeter of the scene, John could tell it was an unsalvageable mess.

Bracing himself against the side of the cruiser, John called Rudy to break the news and also warn him to lock down his records on the chargers. Whatever electronic data he had on their condition and performance. That was all they had left to work with and, if they lost that, there’d be nothing left to investigate. No way to link the chargers to the damage that the DRNs had suffered. No smoking gun.

“Don’t let on who all’s there with you,” John advised Rudy, trying not to name names over the police comms channel. “I’ll be in touch.” He hung up and stuffed the phone back in his pocket. Dorian was staring unblinking at the smoldering embers in the distance.

Just down the street from the house, Rieko and Samantha were sitting in the back of a cruiser, safe and sound with their arms around one another. The house was still in tact, which was good for them. It was just the DRNs who were shit-outta-luck. So what else was new?

Well, John was getting real sick and tired of this same-shit-different-day crap. It was time to change the playing field. Flip the stadium inside-out. Long past time.

John smacked Dorian’s arm to get his attention. “Hey. We gotta work this.”

“I’m angry, John.”

“I can see that, but it’s not going to help Rudy or James or Russell. I need you to focus, Dorian.”

“Yeah. OK. Sorry.”

“Yeah, OK.” John nodded for him to get back in the cruiser. They both slammed their doors shut. “Have you sent your statement to the responding officer? For tonight’s incident report?”

“No, not yet.”

“Good. That’s real good.” Because an incomplete report gave them wiggle room. Although, unfortunately, John’s statement had probably been enough to tip off the arsonists. As soon as they’d heard about two badly damaged DRNs, they’d known what would come next: diagnostics. Diagnostics would turn up the androids’ less-than-ideal system performance, which would lead to additional scrutiny. And from there, it would only be a matter of time before the damage was discovered and linked to the chargers.

So if the incomplete incident report had been the catalyst for the arson, then police department files were compromised. Either someone was on the take and passing information or the department system itself had been infiltrated. Both scenarios left a bad taste in John’s mouth.

John told Dorian, “I want you to hold off on submitting your statement and getting theirs.”

“Hold off? Why?”

“Because I’m the acting captain of Delta Division until 0900 hours tomorrow morning, and I’ve got an idea. But we’re going to need Samantha’s help to pull it off.”

Dorian stared at him. John stared back, absorbing the odd, formless disbelief emanating from his lover’s expression. This was a face John had never seen before. “What?”

“I don’t know where to start,” Dorian replied with flat and brutal honesty. “You told me not to announce our arrival. Those firefighters have no idea that they’re walking all over what may have been a crime scene--”

“And just how the hell do we explain why we’re here? I don’t want to let on that we know about the chargers.” He started the cruiser and did a U-turn.

“Where are we going?” Dorian actually sounded tired and, you know what? John didn’t blame him one bit.

He sighed. “Back to Rudy’s. We need an excuse to show up here, so let’s be good Samaritans and give Forney and Goku a ride home.”

And in the process of delivering them to Samantha’s they’d stumble upon the ruins of the garage and hopefully kick off John’s new game plan.

“What is the plan, John?”

John successfully resisted the urge to grit his teeth. “Well, it goes like this: you asked me to marry you and I said yes.” John braked to a stop at a red traffic light before turning toward Dorian. “And I think it’s time for the whole damn world to know about it.”

Dorian gaped at him.

The light turned green. John turned back to the road and accelerated.

“John. Oh, my God. John--have you lost your mind?”

John chuckled. “You’ve got to admit -- nobody will be expecting something like this.”

“Setting aside the fact that the media will hound you for interviews, which you will hate, and you will probably end up shooting their cameras, there’s one other small issue. The question of when all this developed between us.”

John irreverently shrugged it aside. “We were partners for a year. It happens.”

“‘It happens,’” Dorian echoed woodenly. “‘It happens.’ Between a senior detective and his police-issued android partner? I don’t think you understand. This will ruin your career, John.”

“I do understand, Dorian. I’ll never be promoted -- in fact, I might even get demoted if I’m not outright fired, but you know what? It’ll be worth it because this is our best shot at drawing these assholes out.” John explained, “We keep James and Russell safe at Rudy’s -- we say they’re there for extensive repairs or whatever. You and I keep the attention of the city on us; we’re the distraction -- the wild card. This leaves Forney and Goku as the next most likely targets, which we can watch for.”

“Forney and Goku are civilians, John.”

“Something tells me they’ll at least hear us out.”

“Us? There is no ‘us’ here, John. This is your insane idea. You don’t even know what we’ll be watching for!”

John shifted in his seat. “I’ve got a hunch.”

“I realize I’m just a lowly patrolman, but would you please consider sharing?”

“Damn it, I’m not being cagey because of rank, OK? If I go stupid with tunnel vision, then one of us should be objective.” Dorian couldn’t argue with that, but the thought of leaving Dorian completely in the dark was just wrong. So wrong. “I don’t know what they’ll do, but something awful. Untenable. A rock and a hard place. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. That kind of thing. Something to demonize DRNs. Turn the city against them once and for all.”

“Oh, well, as long as it’s nothing risky,” Dorian bit out.

“Dorian.” John reached out, his hand hovering over the DRN’s arm. When Dorian shifted away, John let his hand drop to the gearshift. “We need this. It’ll buy us time. We need time to build our case.”

“What case is that?” Dorian asked tightly, almost as though he was entertaining John’s bizarre plan despite his better judgement.

“The case for conspiracy to commit mass murder.” At that, Dorian blinked and then swiveled around to meet John’s gaze. “What?” John asked, dividing his attention between Dorian and the upcoming turn. “Did I miss a felony? Misdemeanor?”

“Man, when you run hot, you go supernova.”

John laughed, exhausted and rueful. “Maybe I was just pacing myself.”

“Something a man your age should probably do, yes.”

“Hey--” John pointed a finger at him. “--my age is great. I’m in my prime. It’s just--this is it. This is where we draw the line. This is where we _****have to****_ draw the line because the next time they come at you, they might actually succeed. This is my limit. I’m ready to fight back with everything I’ve got. If you’re going to be right there with me.”

There was a single -- eternal -- beat of silence.

Dorian tilted forward with bemused resignation. “You really think I’d let you follow through with this harebrained scheme without me? I know it goes against an established pattern of behavior, but don’t be an idiot, John.”

John rolled his head toward the window with a lopsided smile.

When Dorian sighed, John felt his own humor fade. “I know you didn’t want it to happen this way.”

“You didn’t, either.”

“Yeah.” What else could John say? Sacrifices had to be made. It wasn’t the first time and it probably wasn’t going to be the last. John made a halfhearted attempt to rally: “But I was open to suggestions.”

“Now you tell me.”

“Aw, c’mon. Like you’re not going to have fun with this.”

“You have got a seriously inappropriate sense of humor.”

True. “Would you rather talk about how much it’s going to cost to get James and Russell roadworthy?”

“Not particularly.”

John speculated, “Well, maybe Samantha can help with that, too.” Somehow.

One thing was for sure: everyone back at Rudy’s lab was itching to do something.

“I want to see Samantha and Rieko,” Forney demanded before John could even put a foot on the staircase leading down to Lab Central. The irate DRN was standing; the chair he’d been perched on was still in motion, spinning wobbly circles.

“Me, too,” Goku piped up. “You shouldn’t have left us here, man.”

“Well, it’s not gonna happen this time,” John capitulated, “so long as Rudy says you can go.”

Rudy shoved the swiveling computer chair out of his path. “Go on, the both of you. The damage is already done.”

“I need to give my statement,” James insisted. He was sitting on a folding chair, out of the way. Russell was laid out on The Table. “About the assault tonight.”

John held up a hand. “No. Both you and Russell are currently out of commission. Unavailable for anything.” To Rudy, John asked, “Can you keep them both here for the time being? Play up the damage to the servo. Say nothing about the rest.”

Rudy startled as realization hit. “Are we running a sting?”

“In a manner of speaking. The less they think we know, the better.” At this point, both Goku and Forney were on the landing and John pinned them both with a hard look. “You got it? Not a word about the damage the chargers caused. Pretend it never happened.”

Goku looked at him like John had lost his mind. “A little hard not to. What if you’d just found out you had stage four cancer. Would you be able to put it outta your mind?”

John aimed his next question at Rudy. “Is this terminal? I mean, the damage can’t be repaired?”

“The nanobots are on it. We’ll see what they can do. It’ll take time, though, because everyone’s limited to their standard issue nanobots. And if those go dead, they’ll be stuck in their last location. The nanobots have to save enough power in order to return to ‘home base’, as it were, and charge up again before heading back out. Slow going, let me tell you.”

“Home base?” John asked on pure reflex.

Forney offered John a bland, pleasant grin. “Our testicles.”

Oh, God. Too much information. Way too much. John pretended he hadn’t heard that. He pointed out to Rudy, “Dorian heals up overnight.”

“Because I inject foreign nanobots right at the damage site,” he explained tartly, as if just now realizing how little John understood about the lengths Rudy regularly went to for Dorian’s sake. “The department has a budget for expedited repairs on police androids, which these blokes--” He gestured between all four civilian DRNs. “--are not.”

John nodded in pissed off resignation. Thumped the metal railing. “Got it. Thanks for the lecture.”

“Just see that you don’t forget it.”

Wow. Someone was cranky. Probably because Val wasn’t here anymore. She was nowhere in sight, anyway. Probably for the best. With one look at John’s face, she might have accused him of plotting something and there was no way John was reading anyone in on his plans. That way they couldn’t throw him in the drunk tank and make him miss his window of opportunity.

Dorian was waiting in the car, monitoring the fire department frequency and just plain letting himself be angry. John went ahead and let him. Because hell yeah, this was worth getting angry and staying angry over.

The drive was oppressively silent. Their arrival was not.

Rieko was a mess, tears and wailing and “Thank God you’re OK!” Samantha herded everyone into a group hug. John and Dorian made sure to stay out of reunion range.

“C’mon,” John said to Dorian. “Let’s introduce ourselves to whoever’s in charge. Make sure they know we want copies of their findings.”

Halfway between the homecoming cluster and the nearest fire engine, John felt a hand on his arm. He stopped. Turned.

Dorian pleaded, “Let me try to talk you out of this plan of yours, John.”

“Will I be putting you at risk if we go through with it?”

“I don’t know.” Which meant Dorian’s argument was going to be centered on John. John’s happiness. John’s career. John, John, John.

“Are you gonna dump me if I’m not a cop anymore?”

“Of course not.”

“Really? ‘Badge Bunny Dorian?’”

“John. Disengage idiot mode. Now. Please.”

“Then stop trying to protect me, D.” John squared off with his partner, his lover, his fiancé, his future husband, and explained very carefully, “I want you to live, and I’m going to make sure you get a fair shot at it.”

Dorian’s lips mashed into a tight frown. “Don’t ask me to be OK with this: with you throwing yourself on a grenade.”

“Then I guess you’d better stick close and make sure I don’t overdo it.” He twitched his brows playfully and Dorian let loose with a frustrated huff. His breath felt hot on John’s neck, even at the socially acceptable distance they were maintaining.

“Are you honestly going to listen to me when I tell you to back off?”

“Yes.”

Dorian exhaled again. Calm and resolved now, he said, “I’m with you. Let’s do it.”


	26. 7:30 a.m.

The morning news. John usually avoided it because of the spin. He could get his updates at work without the hype. Besides, he’d rather stay in bed as late as possible, drink too much coffee, take a shower and damn it all, yes, enjoy styling his hair. The simple pleasures in life that centered and steadied him before he launched himself into the fray of another day of crime-fighting chaos.

But 7:30 a.m. didn’t find John in bed or in the shower. He was clutching a travel thermos, though. The one Dorian had given him. Too bad it was already empty.

“I need a refill,” he informed the universe.

Dorian answered. “No, you don’t. Trust me.”

John sighed and squinted up at the sky. A beautiful day. A hell of a contrast with the backdrop of charred wreckage they were standing in front of. Rieko was touching up Samantha’s hair and makeup. The news van was parallel parked with precision. Bystanders were clustering up in dribs and drabs: curious neighbors and avid android rights proponents. The two groups were pretty easy to distinguish from each other: bathrobes and bed head versus militant enthusiasm and holo posters.

John was wearing his usual: black on black with a jacket. Not his dad’s. Dorian had wordlessly handed him his least shabby windbreaker on their way out the door and John had figured why not. It was for TV, after all.

He checked his phone. No messages. Not even from the fire marshal’s office. It would have been nice to confirm that they were dealing with arson. Concrete facts and a solid action plan. All John had to offer at the moment was a whole lot of ifs. 

“You’re all tensed up, man,” Dorian observed.

“I’d be less tense with coffee.”

“You’d be doing laps around the city with more coffee.” Dorian pinched the fabric of his windbreaker, brows hitching upward in a silent demand for an explanation.

John grunted. “Don’t like cameras.”

Dorian stared. “Cameras are watching you all the time. My eyes are cameras.”

“Not helping.”

“Does it help to know that I believe we can do this?”

“I’m gonna screw it up.”

“No, you won’t. I won’t let you.” Dorian paused. “But we should have some kind of signal. If one of us has to call it off.”

“I’m not calling it off.”

“Don’t get defensive. I wasn’t implying anything.”

“Imply--! OK, now you’re just trying to distract me.”

“Is it working?” Oh, damn. That smile.

“Not at all. You’re terrible at this. I hate seven-thirty.” John lifted the travel mug and then remembered that it was empty.

Dorian plucked it from his hand and shut it inside the cruiser. “Come on. You can hold my hand if you need to.”

“Oh, shut it.” He stomped over to where Samantha and Forney and Goku were loitering. The on-site news reporter was just making her way over. She introduced herself and dutifully repeated their names. The cameraman motioned them into position, shuffling everyone so that John and Samantha were in the middle. Dorian on John’s left. Forney and Goku on Samantha’s right.

The cameraman signaled. A small light on the headset he was wearing started blinking.

Oh, shit. This was happening. John tensed. Dorian’s hand pressed against his lower back. He told himself to untense. It worked. For all of three seconds. Basically, for the time it took for the reporter to do a poetic intro and dramatic recap of events.

“A traumatic night for all of you,” the news reporter was saying. She angled the slender, hand-held mic toward Forney and Goku. “How are James and Russell doing after foiling that vicious mugging?”

“Well, they’re still undergoing treatment for their injuries from last night,” Goku volunteered and Forney was quick to add, “But if they were here, they’d say it was worth it. Just, you know, to help in some way. Make a difference.”

“I’m sure it made a huge difference to the man they rescued.”

And the perps they’d helped arrest. Oh, yeah. Those assholes were feeling the difference, all right.

John kept his mouth shut.

“And then, less than an hour later, the garage and guesthouse of android rights proponent Samantha Rubin was engulfed in flames.” The mic angled toward the lawyer.

“It was unreal. One minute, we were unwinding at the end of the day, and the next there’s this roaring fire right in our window.”

Indeed, the house had been singed. There was soot on the nearest windows. The heat might have even made them brittle.

“What did you lose in the fire?”

“Mostly, the DRN chargers for Forney, Goku, James, and Russell. We’ve been offering them free room and board until they can get on their feet.”

“Do you have any reason to suspect this may be a hate crime against androids?”

“I have no reason not to think that.”

“And what does the city’s Delta Division have to say about this? Detective John Kennex, we all know you from the arrest of robotics engineer -- the father of the DRN line -- Nigel Vaughn. Both you and Officer Dorian here captured a dangerous fugitive last December. Are you opening an investigation into last night’s fire? Do you suspect arson?”

John cleared his throat. “No, not at this time.”

He didn’t try to soften the blow because he’d promised to give Samantha an opening to rake him over the coals. John had asked Dorian to pass on the request via Forney and Forney had answered back that she was looking forward to it. With enough enthusiasm to give the android a jolt of fear.

Oh, yeah. John was in for it now.

Samantha rounded on him. “You came all this way just to say that?”

“I’m here because the Delta Division is committed to getting to the bottom of this,” he woodenly recited.

The news reporter butted in: “You’re not here to show support for your former colleagues? Forney and Goku worked with you on the other side of the Wall, didn’t they?”

“They were essential members of the team there. They’ll be excellent citizens here.”

Samantha sneered, “Well, now that you’ve patted them on the head for a job well done--”

“That’s not why I’m here--”

“You’re not a fire investigator and you weren’t the responding officer to the assault the night before,” Samantha badgered. Lawyers were good at that. “So the department sent us their front man to appease the people?”

“I wasn’t ordered to be here.”

“If that’s the case, then just how is this any of your business, Detective Kennex?”

And this was John’s cue. He’d asked Samantha to push him hard. Hadn’t told her why. Now seemed to be as good a time as any.

John all but snarled, “The minute Dorian asked me to marry him and I said yes it became my business.”

Silence. Not even the news reporter knew what to make of that.

It was Goku who cut through the tension: “Oh, snap.”

Forney blinked and leaned around to enthuse at Dorian: “Congratulations!”

“Thank you.”

“Officer Dorian, you proposed to Detective Kennex,” the reporter said, evidently remembering that they were live on the air. Half the city was probably slack-jawed right now, coffee cup or cereal spoon halfway to their gaping mouths. “When did this happen?”

“After the state court ruling was passed down,” Dorian explained, calm as a cucumber. “On the same day I became a citizen of this city with the right to own property, to seek employment, to vote.”

“And… to marry?”

“One day, yes. That is in our plans.” When he looked at John, John had a smile ready for him. Just him.

Samantha recovered. “The state court neglected to include that in its ruling.”

“Then we will fight for it,” Dorian declared. “It’s my hope that everyone who has supported the rights of DRNs thus far will continue to do so.”

Noise -- cheers and shouts -- from the crowd. Holy hell, John had forgotten they were even there.

John wheeled on the reporter and summarized, “I am here as a detective to make sure any crimes that may have been committed are investigated and the perpetrators brought before a court of law.” He shifted closer to his fiancé and said almost quietly and just for Dorian: “I’m here personally because I believe in equal rights for DRNs. I believe in Dorian.”

Dorian smiled and the universe narrowed down to that overjoyed expression. And when Dorian’s hand on John’s cheek guided him closer, John didn’t even consider resisting.

Their lips touched in a soft, chaste kiss. Right there under the glaring sun. In front of media drone cameras and on every monitor in the whole damn city. 

Applause from the dozens looking on. Joyful hollers of encouragement and bellows of intent to take this fight to the Supreme Court. For sure there were plenty of motivated supporters for Dorian and his right to marry. John just wasn’t so sure they’d be all that happy about Dorian’s choice of husband, but John was _**Dorian’s choice.**_ John had tried to talk him out of it one or twice. Now it was the rest of the world’s turn to see just how stubborn DRNs could be.

**_Fun times._ **

As Dorian leaned back, John didn’t fight the emotion that filled his chest to bursting. If he had tears in his eyes, so be it.

There was no turning back now.

_****Here we go…** ** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued...

**Author's Note:**

> It was wonderful of you to come along with me on this fic-venture! I wish you all the best, friend! (^_^)
> 
> Love,  
> Manny Manniness  
> manniness.dreamwidth.org


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